Small and Medium Sized Business PLM

Introduction

I wanted to develop a white-paper with some comments about the small and medium sized business (SMB) view of PLM. The SMB space has some specific PLM offerings including ones from Siemens and PTC, but I wanted to discuss some topics I feel are pertinent to all SMB implementations .

What is SMB?

Defining an SMB is not easy; I would typify them by saying
1. They are usually privately owned companies
2. Often are suppliers to larger companies
3. Have small numbers of engineers who work on multiple projects and tend to be flexible in how they work
4. They probably manufacture things themselves

Why implement PLM at SMBs?

Understand problems to solve

It is important to understand why you want to implement PLM at your business, there is a considerable investment in time and money to achieve this so insure you have a good problem statement.
The most pressing issues for SMBs tend to be vaulting CAD data, managing change, bill of material management and consolidating intellectual property i.e. taking the secret sauce recipe from Bert's head and into a computer system.
If you are planning on implementing PLM you need to be clear on why and what savings you are hoping to make.

How flexible are you?

Many companies want to implement their processes exactly, you can make life easier for yourself if you are flexible in your approach. You might want to consider the CMII processes defined by the Institute of Configuration Management https://icmhq.com/ who offer certifications and training. You might also consider PLM tools with built in templates or structures that can really help reduce the amount of time to implement and mitigate a lot of risks.

Phases of implementation

For a SMB implementation you need to insure that you get early successes in your project. There are certain things that are “low hanging fruit” in PLM implementations that can help you get off to a quick and successful fruit.
I would suggest consider CAD data vaulting – this can be straightforward and helps with data re-use. Other things to consider for early implementations could include workflow or bill of material management, but this can be a challenge if your processes are suspect!

Implementation planning

As mentioned in the previous section I would always choose something that shows early return on investment as an early phase – this can help demonstrate to the executive team that PLM can work for you.
I would also suggest it might be worth doing a pilot on a small project to learn more about the tool you chose and how you would work with it. You can usually get a demo license or some kind of trial from most of the PLM companies, time to practice your negotiation skills!
Any pilot you do should be on a real project with real engineers (and others) to insure you exercise the tool.

Skills you will need to hire

It is quite likely that you will not have all the skills you will need in house. Some people can be promoted into the roles of project manager and also becoming the business model administrator, but some IT roles will need specialists; for example a database administrator (DBA). Note DBAs can be very expensive so be clear on what level of expertise you need.
You can also either use a vendor team to help with an implementation, but it is good to have your own people in some roles since the vendor's team may well disappear at the end of the project to pastures new.
You could also look at third party implementers to help as well, they are more likely to develop a longer relationship with you as a smaller business than the larger vendors would.
Finally you might also want to consider hiring someone to head your implementation who has “done it before”. A seasoned person will know where the risks are in a project, but you should insure that their previous experiences match the areas and product you are planning to use.
I've not really talked about selection processes etc. in this paper, but people with previous experience can really help in the selection process to avoid being wowed too much by technology!

ROI - how to justify

I'll be writing a whole whitepaper on ROI, but a few ideas for SMBs are.
Know how long things processes take BEFORE implementing a PLM project for example how much time do people take to find things and how much does part duplication cost your company.
Also understand what do you want to save versus how much do you want to improve quality or speed your products to market. All are good things, but pay attention to what you want to get out of the product versus how much you will need to invest.

Special considerations

Adoption

It is key to have buy in from not only management but also the end users of the system. Keep people informed and involved in the implementation as you go along so they feel ownership of the solution.
Make sure that engineers are involved since a lot of the additional efforts in a PLM system fall on them. Make sure they understand that the additional work they need to do helps all of the business.
I tend to work closely with engineers and get their opinions and buy in - don't be an ivory tower since your initiative will fail without the support of the people who will use the system. Although this is true for all PLM initiatives it is supremely important for smaller implementations where every person can make or break the solution.

Total cost of ownership

Insure you are aware of the total cost of owning one of these systems. Understand how much extra you will need to spend on hardware and training. Also insure you know how much additional effort will be required to manage the system. I would suggest talking to other companies who have done this before you. Many smaller companies are happy to share information. If a vendor can offer people for you to talk to that I feel is a good sign, but do your own research too so you get a balanced view.

Maintainability

Remember there are hidden costs such as maintenance for the software and technical support access and how will your engineers interact with the vendor, do you need to set up a help desk.
Upgrades to the system should be planned since I always recommend keeping at a fairly recent maintenance release of your chosen system.

Ease of use

If you need lots of mentoring or if the system is prone to messing up your data then people will be reluctant to use it and you will struggle to have a successful implementation. Spend time with people before go live to iron out usability issues wherever possible.

Cloud

The cloud may well help you to eliminate some costs and issues I've discussed above. I was particularly thinking of infrastructure and skilled DBAs. You could utilize a cloud solution and rely on the cloud provider to provide systems for you which they manage. All you need to do is have the business administrator and SMEs. Again, as I mentioned earlier, know the cost of the various solutions since you might find a Cloud solution is slightly more expensive but reduces costs and risks in areas that your company might not have expertise and also is not able to invest in those areas.
Check out my earlier post on cloud PLM
http://pdmguru.blogspot.com/2015/02/cloud-plm-basics.html

Conclusions

Above all SMB PLM can help reduce costs, capture (and secure) intellectual property and improve quality of products. SMB tends to be very competitive and so anything that gets your company an edge can really help. Also in times of slowdowns I think investing in PLM can help save money and increase efficiency.