‘Making business processes fit
the PLM system is wrong’

What do you see as the biggest benefits that
PLM can help businesses to achieve?

We see it as one of the three main processes within a company,
being the focus of the product information. We see it
working alongside the other major processes of supply chain
management and customer relationship management. With
its focus on products, PLM can help to deliver products faster
to the market, to get them right first time, and to ensure
they comply with regulations. A lot of products these days
require full traceability, so that last point is increasingly
important.

What is the best way to implement PLM within
a company?

Our view is that there is often with PLM projects too much
emphasis on designing functionalities and not enough on
understanding the processes that already exist within the
business, and integrating and improving them using the PLM
tools. The key is to understand the products and services that
are at the heart of the company and the people and business
processes at work.

How does that approach differ from the way
that PLM has been tackled in some companies
in the past?

At Karer Consulting we believe that all companies are
different and there is never likely to be a “one size fits all”
PLM system. Our job as consultants is to understand our
clients’ business processes and to use the elements of PLM to
enhance the business as a whole, throughout the entire lifecycle
of the products. Making business processes fit the PLM
system is wrong; we should use the PLM system to improve
and augment the processes. Our first question to our customers
always is: “What is it that you want to achieve?”

PLM had a fairly chequered history in its early
years. Is PLM now here to stay?

I believe very firmly that it is, but I think you have to regard
PLM as a series of processes that surround the product, its
creation, its deployment and through its entire life-cycle.
In the past, maybe it was too centred on the design and
development side. Now we can see the benefits are much wider.
And I can see it will spread to new sectors, such as consumer
goods and even financial services. They have products: PLM
can work for them too.