The US Census Bureau reports that in 2007, over 1 million companies (19% of the total) that ran a payroll had between 20 and 100 employees, and made a contribution of over $5 trillion to the North American economy. If companies of up to 500 people are included, then the figures rise to 38% of the workforce and over $8 trillion in sales.

The European Commission estimates that there are 23 million SMEs in the EU, representing 99% of businesses. While this may seem quite high, in the UK 28% of private sector output comes from businesses of 10-250 people, and in Italy up to 95% of industrial companies are owner-managed businesses with less than 150 staff.

So what is the response of the PLM industry to this huge body of economic opportunity? In a nutshell - to try to sell "PLM Lite".

The PLM Standardisation Workshop in Milan last week showed what a mistaken idea this is. It is easy to assume that the drivers for, and benefits of, PLM amongst small businesses are somehow a "stripped down" version of what large companies experience, but that is the wrong conclusion. When this approach fails, it is attributed to cost factors, or lack of resource within the SME, and attention moves back to easier pickings from larger companies.

This is not just a problem for small companies and PLM vendors. SMEs are part of large companies' ecosystems, and large companies often try to broaden their supply base for technical or commercial reasons. It is very frustrating to find that a new supplier does not have the foundation or internal infrastructure that the customer needs, and helpful to no-one if the SME rejects the customer's way of working as too onerous.

The methodology encompasses the whole scope of PLM, because SMEs need to know how to move up the value chain. It is structured into a checklist format that makes it easy to set up and run PLM projects. It adapts to the "SME management style" (which can almost be the inverse of that of a large corporation), and includes a "terminology translator" that enables an SME to understand the conventional PLM world in its own language.

The Handbook, naturally, is based on the strong SME/PMI presence in Italy, but it is written in English and is applicable in any country. The issues of PLM, and the drivers and constraints of SMEs, are the same everywhere. As the Handbook is used over time, and more small companies adopt and implement PLM, it may become possible to standardise the methodology even further in a way that can be adopted and spread via the many national and trade-related SME associations.

The PLM Handbook for SMEs is published this week as the Q3 issue of the PLM Journal.

This will be a structured benchmark between 5-10 user companies, with all of the documentation and management handled by the PLMIG. The companies that are involved so far are all multinational, so your company can take part wherever you are based.

Participation in the Discussion Stage entails no cost or obligation. If you would like to know how the benchmark will operate and who else might be involved, now is the time to find out. There is more information on the PLMIG web site or you can contact me via governance@plmig.com.