Planning, Trust and Security
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2PLM NewsletterJohn Stark Associates November 23, 2009 - Vol12 #18 |
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Welcome to the 2PLM e-zine This issue includes :
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PLM Planning and Company Strategy By Roger Tempest |
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Having covered the two different project management methodologies for PLM and PDM in the November 09 issue and the October 26 issue, it is time to join them together. And joined-up thinking requires that all project plans fit with the Company Strategy. This is where many PLM teams claim 'force majeure' - that although they want to do their best, they are not empowered to achieve it. After all, they would say, the Company Strategy is outside their control, and probably does not even mention PLM; the people who set the Company Strategy do not understand PLM; and there is no senior management commitment to support the PLM point of view. Unfortunately, even if all of the above are true, the buck still stops with the PLM team. The reason is that senior directors and VPs, whose support is so earnestly desired, do not have time to understand PLM in sufficient depth to take decisions about it. So the PLM team must present them with concise, relevant and accurate information about PLM, together with the 'short list' of possible options. Then the VPs can do their work. A PLM team with a supportive CEO, Board and Steering Group must work just as hard as a disempowered team on upward management. They need to involve the same people, produce the same working material, and generate the same milestones and metrics - they just do so in a climate of easier acceptance. Thus all PLM teams face the same challenges, and to overcome them they need a standard methodology that works. The methodology depends on three things:-
The PLM team achieves the first by producing a published and agreed PLM Vision and PLM Strategy that integrate with the plans, and that are understood by all levels of |
management (as covered in 2PLM May 25 and June 22). If there is a clear PLM Strategy, then it is much easier to relate PLM to the Company Strategy; and to set the Strategy you need the Vision. Controlling the Steering Group is achieved by having consistently good working material and a positive, rather than subservient, attitude. The Steering Group is there to provide guidance and direction, and it is up to the PLM team to ensure that it does so. (Note that the "correct decisions" are not necessarily those that the PLM team wants, but those that are the best for the business. The Steering Group, after all, is meant to provide a high-level viewpoint and a cross-check for the PLM team's ideas.) Even with a clear Vision and Strategy and the best working material, PLM can be sidelined if people discount it, or ignore it completely. To avoid this, PLM must be seen to be directly relevant to everyone in the business. This can be achieved by documenting actual examples of how the company is wasting effort or resources, and presenting these at the appropriate level for those concerned. Because all businesses are imperfect, every PLM project will uncover areas of under-performance that could be improved. The third part of the methodology captures these areas of under-performance and channels them into the team's proposals and documentation. The 'positive virus', therefore, is an embedded framework of vertical, work-oriented, war-story reporting based on existing and planned PLM projects, combined with relevant local metrics. The whole methodology is covered in detail in the Q3 issue of the PLM Journal. The long-term aim of integrating the PLM Vision, Strategy and Planning with the overall Company Strategy is to achieve 'PLM Traction', where PLM is so deeply embedded within business operations that a given increase or decrease in PLM performance results in a corresponding increase or decrease in company performance. Roger Tempest is co-founder of the PLMIG. You can send your comments or input via strategy@plmig.com |
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Trust and Security - Relevant or Not? by Lion Benjamins |
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| At an invitation-only event, a priest and a prominent lawyer are discussing the importance of trust and security. The priest indicates that trust is a fundamental building stone in our society. He has heard confessions of thousands of people and, to this day, he is proud that he has never broken that trust, although there were many that caused him moral dilemmas. As an example, he tells of the very first confession he ever took in this very parish, a young man who confessed to having murdered someone. The priest had followed the case on TV and in the papers and the murderer had never been caught. As a priest, he was unable to break the trust and security of the confession.
At that moment, a man greets the priest by name, introduces himself to the lawyer, and adds proudly that the very first confession the priest had ever taken was his. The man is later arrested, convicted and sent to jail.
Where is this article leading and, you may well ask, what is it doing in a newsletter that has its focus on PLM? The modern enterprise is a blend of players that fulfil different tasks. These players can be part of the 'company' or part of the 'corporation' or part of the 'Extended Enterprise'. |
The days of the fully integrated organisation are long gone.
PLM systems need to communicate with each other, and with other enterprise systems. The technical solutions such as firewalls and data encryption appear to enable systems to pass data across organisational boundaries with some success. But what will happen when the product information being generated by the products themselves - such as bearing wear statistics, or turbine breakdown frequency, or temperature fluctuations within generators - which all impact the product lifecycle - needs to get back to the people responsible for their service, manufacture or design? To whom does that information belong? Who is allowed to access what information? Who is allowed to use information, who can just pass it along?
What do you think? Your opinion is important.
Lion Benjamins is the Chairman of Promise Innovation International Oy. Top |
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