Phase two of PLM

Introduction

I wanted to write a paper on what to do after an initial (hopefully successful) PLM project. Clearly you want to build on what was already done and hopefully you developed a vision of multiple phases when you pitched the original PLM suggestions to the senior management team.
It is critical to have a good multi-phase plan to deploy the technology in your business.

Planning

If you already have a multi-phase plan you should review this and see if it still makes sense. It is a good time to revisit your vision and thoughts and refine them. I'll touch on this in the next section.
As with all PLM project planning you should insure that you are delivering ROI and also solving real business problems, not just perceived ones. You should do all the due diligence you did in the initial project (and more) since you do not want to break what was already accomplished!

Building on initial project

Hopefully your initial deployment went well. It is likely that you addressed a lot of your low-hanging fruit so this time around you may have to be address something that is not so easy to accomplish.
If you can take your initial deployment e.g. CAD data management to a new level (for example change management or BOM management) then you are building on the initial data.
Also the teams involved in the initial deployment may well be interested in participating. You should also try to work with the project manager and people who implemented your first phase, they will have not only the experience from the first phase but also the PLM skills needed for the next phase.

Good candidates for phase two

Prerequisites?

When looking for good phase two candidate projects you should try to build on the data from phase one. A good idea would be to build a dependency map between all your planned phases and projects to determine what order makes the most sense for the implementation. It might be that a couple of projects can be run simultaneously. Remember to be cautious though, the same rules apply about biting off too much at once!

Change Management

Change management can be a good choice for phase two since it builds on the common first phase of CAD data management. Change management is a common problem in companies, it does “touch” many departments so it can be a challenge and as always if you're processes are broken you need to address this issue BEFORE implementing change management. If you are unsure you can always look at CMII (see the Institute of Configuration Management at icmhq.com) as a template. Most PLM tools either have templates for CMII or are capable of supporting this.
If you are looking to implement change management I would also suggest piloting this before a big bang to understand if your company can handle to changes and also what this does to changes running through the business.

BOM Management

As with change management BOM management can build on the initial phase of a PLM project. Again it is more complex, I'll have at least one more paper on BOM management, but it is a great thing if you can get ALL your company's BOM under control. Many companies think they have a good handle on BOMs but in reality anyone who has a spreadsheet could potentially be managing a key BOM in your company!
Clearly defining scope here is key. Decide if you want to just manage Engineering BOMs (EBOMs) or are you more daring and will look at Manufacturing and others.

MultiCAD

Multi-CAD basically means using several CAD tools interoperably. For example in an automobile you could have the engine designed in CATIA, the interior in SolidWorks, the powertrain in NX and the bodywork in Creo. Clearly it is not ideal to convert all the parts of the vehicle into all the tools but you can use visualization tools to allow people to model against one single truth. Also many of the CAD tools now allow you to open lightweight visualization formats in the native CAD too, so if you generate VIZ for all CAD you should be able to achieve this. There is a whitepaper planned for multicad.

Legacy systems

Another suggestion is moving data from legacy systems into the new PLM tool. This is a great idea for a couple of reasons; it can open up access to the data and also reduce costs since you no longer need the legacy systems and their licenses! Often legacy systems are not supported so getting all your legacy data onto a system that is under active maintenance from a vendor is a sensible plan.

ERP connection

ERP connection relies on several other topics already mentioned above. You need BOMs and also Change under some kind of PLM control before you can attempt this.
Also it is not just a question of getting BOMs into the PLM tool, you need to insure that a process is defined for how BOMs are managed in ERP and PLM. Many of the decisions will be strongly influenced by the ERP and PLM tools you use. Work with the vendors to insure you leverage their experiences and best practices BEFORE going too far down this route. I would suggest that ERP connection should be a phase 3 or later. Having said that ERP linking to PLM is where you really become an integrated enterprise. It leads to huge advances in data integrity and also trace-ability of changes. It also reduces errors that are introduced into the process by departments “throwing data over the wall” and manual data entry e.g. re-entering a BOM from a drawing into an ERP system.

What might not be a good candidate!

When evaluating potential phase two projects remember your experiences from the initial phase, insure you understand the costs and benefits and risks of the candidate projects

Taking stock of initial phase

The initial phase of the implementation is the best data about how future phases will go. You should understand and review any lessons learned from the first phase to insure you don't make the same (or similar) mistakes in the next phases.

High ROI/High Effort?

Remember ROI – it is key that the company invests money into projects that will address problems in the processes and also that the project will deliver improvements in quality and cost reductions. If it does not there is a risk the company will not invest in future projects.

Scoping

As always do not over commit. There is a temptation after a successful phase one to go ahead with many projects. If phase one was a huge success many other departments may be interested. Insure that any new groups are carefully vetted and understand all the risks etc.
As mentioned earlier you should understand the inter-relationships between projects and also how they impact the business, this will help you understand dependencies and what logically fits.

Not all at once!

Sometimes there are a lot of projects that seem to be related to each other and it seems impossible to separate them. Look carefully at the inter-dependencies and separate them if at all possible. If you cannot separate them insure you add enough slack into your project plans to cover risks associated with aligning all the projects.

Continued support from vendor

If you were able to get support/advice from your vendor I would suggest leveraging this in all phases. Remember to look at vendor web sites for help/recommendations and also consider using the vendor to project manage the implementation if feasible. As mentioned always try to talk to other users who have already implemented what you are planning to learn from their projects too!

Concluding remarks

In phase two of a PLM program you should insure that you build on phase one. Do not over commit on phase two and do not take on too much. Try to show ROI and include senior management (where appropriate) to insure success!
Good luck!