2PLM Newsletter

John Stark Associates                                                                                                                                               May 10, 2010 - Vol13 #3

Welcome to the 2PLM e-zine

This issue includes :

• The Dawn of PLM for SMEs
  
• Standards and SMEs
  
• CL₂M Case Study 3 : MOL Telecomm Equipment Diagnosis and Maintenance
  
• PLM News

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Every day, you see that the Design Office, which previously produced drawings on physical media (blueprints, Mylar) now provides digital files. Just as for the media which they replace, the management of digital files must be meticulous. A distinction must be made between an original (whose uniqueness must be guaranteed) and its copies. Each document, and its subsequent versions, must be uniquely and correctly identifiable.

Among the consequences, many activities must be transformed to work effectively in the new digital environment. They include:

• the traditional circuit of verification and approval (previously formalised by managers' signatures)
• the maintenance of consistency between assembly documents and detailed drawings in a "package"
• archival allowing consultation over a long time period, providing evidence of intellectual property

In any such environment, it's necessary to answer some specific questions precisely:

• How will each component be identified, regardless of its state (raw, machined ...) or its source (purchased, manufactured ...)?
• Who is responsible for a part's definition documents? Who is allowed to make changes? What are the versions of reference?
• How does one designate the sub-assemblies obtained by assembling parts?

"Although mid-sized enterprises share similar needs as larger companies and understand the importance of PLM, they have certain concerns about implementing PLM, including limited IT resources for services and training; resistance to changes to standard operating procedures (SOPs); unknown total costs and disruption to users' daily work." [Enovia]

"The demands on small and medium size business are more challenging than ever. Great products are becoming exponentially more difficult to create due to increasing product complexity, globally distributed design teams, fragmented IT architecture and more stringent time, cost and regulatory requirements. The key to success is to harness product development activities." [PTC]

"As a business owner [...] you have to constantly plan ways to innovate, collaborate, reduce cycle time and manage complexity. On top of these daily issues, growth of your company is dependent on strategies to address new markets, while effectively competing with larger enterprises with greater resources. The development of a rapidly deployable product lifecycle management strategy focused on speed-to-market is essential." [Siemens PLM]

The quotes could go on but the underlying message is the same, and supports the views of the lead article in this issue of 2PLM.

SMEs can have many or all of the PLM demands of large corporations, without having the specialist human and technical resources to address them. Many medium-sized companies are very well aware of PLM, but cannot see a clear and cost-effective way of implementing it. Vendors are trying to extend the PLM marketplace downwards, and the more successful they are, the better the overall PLM environment. PLM-enabled corporations need a completely PLM-enabled supply chain to take full advantage of their investment.

Standards offer a "path of least resistance" for PLM. By following standards, it is easier to do things right first time, and to avoid wasted cost and effort. Not only do standards encapsulate best practice in a pre-packaged and easy-to-use form, but the actual development of standards creates new knowledge, and that can be passed on through the industry. PLM adoption is made easier, PLM implementations are more effective, and the demand for PLM increases.

The first new PLM standards are published in the Q1 2010 issue of the PLM Journal.

Roger Tempest is co-founder of the PLMIG. You can comment or request more information via standards@plmig.com  

This case study is based on one of the 10 commercial applications developed during the EU PROMISE Project. It describes some of the features of the complete application, the objective of which was to enable more effective Middle-of-Life (MOL) diagnosis and maintenance of telecommunications equipment.

The equipment in question is a broadband access system (IBAS), a Multi-Service Access Node, manufactured by one of the PROMISE partners and supplied to its customers as a platform for their broadband services.

Operators may also use card substitution as a first step in diagnosis without properly tracking which cards were used, or the results. This has limited the effectiveness and reliability of diagnosis and maintenance of these systems and increased repair costs.

For this application, the common PROMISE technologies were applied in order to meet the following objectives:

1. Receive and integrate field data produced with product information existing in the back-end systems
2. Track and maintain the history of an IBAS installation at a specific customer site
3. Track IBAS line cards through their lifecycle
4. Register and maintain past service cases to support decision making on diagnosis
5. Integrate product information existing in the various systems
6. Support decision-making: provide appropriate information views to support decision making on product improvements

The design and implementation of this application was in accordance with the PROMISE Architecture. Information collected by the existing IBAS APU (Asynchronous Transfer Mode Processing Unit) was accessed via a top-level PEID (Product Embedded Information Device) implemented as the so-called PPIM (Promise Product Identification Media). PROMISE Data Services (middleware) was used to link the PEIDs with the back-end PDKM and DSS systems.

At Beginning-of-Life (BOL), quite late in the Production cycle, each component is instantiated. Preliminary product information is generated and written to an RFID tag (called PCIM in the full case study). This is the local PEID. It enables tracking the component line cards and the on-board controller (APU) in each rack assembly up to the point when power is first applied, after which components and changes to them can be discovered automatically.

The RFID tags later serve to identify the component any time that it becomes separated from the IBAS system and to link it to its historical information and any fault reports.

The most important activity in this case study is the IBAS Onsite Support Visit. A technician visits the IBAS system and uses the portable PPIS (Promise Product Identification System) to establish communication with the target PPIM, download all the data residing on the PPIM and store it locally on the PPIS.

If communication between the PPIS and the PROMISE Decision Support System (DSS) can be established, the technician may seek support from it. All the information about the target PPIM stored on the PCIS during this visit are then uploaded via the PROMISE Data Services middleware to the PDKM, and are used as a problem description by the DSS.

A DSS user enters in the DSS (PDKM) as accurate a description of the problem at hand as possible. This is accomplished via a suitable user interface, or by uploading data collected from a PPIM, or by a combination of those two.

If this process does not lead to a solution, the DSS user is presented with a user interface allowing the narrowing or widening of the Search Space. Finally, in all cases the User may/should enter via the DSS interface any Problem or Solution Report that can help in future cases.

The following list shows the projected benefits derived from applying PROMISE technologies to the IBAS system:

1. Reduced maintenance cost (Target: 25% per year)
2. Reduced field technicians (Target: 25% labour cost reduction for field maintenance)
3. Reduced number of calls (Target: 20% per year)
4. Reduced design effort (Target: 30% per year)
5. Reduced stock capacity (Target: 15% per year)
6. Reduced hardware failures (Target: 25% owing to preventive maintenance)
7. Increased customer satisfaction due to improved fulfilment of customer requirements

Registered users who are logged in to cl2m.com will be able to access the full public text of this PROMISE demonstrator case study by following this link: Case Study 3: Middle of Life Telecomm Equipment Diagnosis and Maintenance. There is no charge for registration.

David Potter is Chief Technical Officer, Promise Innovation International Oy, and former Chairman of the Project Steering Board of the EU PROMISE Project.