Creating Frankenstein’s Monster

Ever since it was published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has inspired many interpretations of the story.

This article on the BBC website gives 10 of the possible interpretations that may have inspired Shelley to create the sinister Dr Frankenstein and his monster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12711091

Is there another analogy to be made for PLM?

The concept of PLM has certainly taken on a life of its own.  From its origin as CAD management to PDM to PLM, its scope has extended from the Engineering department to the entire business.  As it progresses further into the business, companies face the challenge of piecing the PLM concept alongside ERP or S&OP.

As PLM’s concept has evolved, so has its technology.  Occasionally, its development has followed Dr Frankenstein’s own methods as companies have found and sewn together bits of different systems from different suppliers.

Even when an entire system is purchased from one supplier, it still might require an element of “cut and shunt” to match with existing systems or even within the PLM suite itself.

But does sewing your systems together constitute PLM?

Frankenstein brings his creature to life but misses the vital ingredient that makes him human.  The creature does not have the experience or morals to guide him.  As a result, he is confused and ultimately causes tragedy for his creator.

These are valuable lessons to be learned for your PLM implementation.

Your PLM strategy needs to link to something more than the process itself.  So, the benefits need to be aligned with the ultimate goal of your business.

Doing this will help you to create your business case and keep you focussed on the ultimate prize rather than drive you to create a monster that only adds confusion to your business.

Your people also need to understand why you are asking them to adopt PLM.  Showing them the benefits will help to persuade them but PLM cannot be created in a flash of lightning and a big bang. 

Your people will need time to learn about life in the PLM world.  You will have to guide and teach them how to behave in their new environment.

Are you creating a man or a monster?

 

Posted on March 15th, 2011 Tags: ,
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It could be worse …

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been surprised to see two references to Spectrum computers popping up.  The first was part of a BBC 4 program ‘Electric Dreams’, where a family has all their gadgets removed and replaced with the technology from a bygone decade (this week was the 80s).  Then I stumbled across a separate article on BBC News dedicated specifically to the Sinclair ZX81 computer.

The article about the ZX81 is basically a list of things that were rubbish about it.  My personal favourite being that parts of it had to be held on with blu-tack to make it work.

The article is available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674.

Despite the faults, there seems to be a real fondness for it and ultimately an acknowledgement that the lack of functionality encouraged the enthusiasts into developing their programming skills.  This seems to be evidence that with the right amount of enthusiasm and interest, some people are willing to overlook some pretty obvious issues to do something that benefits them.

What would you have to do to get your organisation to adopt your PLM system?

The early adopters of the ZX81 had very little frame of reference for the home computers and how they should work and it was a labour of love for them to overcome the difficulties to start to create new programs that would push the technology forward. 

What if overcoming these “niggles” was forced, and in addition to their normal job?  Would the enthusiasm be the same?

To get users to truly buy into your vision of PLM, they need to see that it will help them.  The best way to do this is to understand what the issues that affect the new product development process in your company and demonstrate where PLM will help them.  But be aware that levels of interest and enthusiasm will vary …

There was a great bit in Electric Dreams where the family’s teenage son brought a friend from school back to show him the Acorn BBC computer that they had been given by the makers of the program.  The program was made in 2009 so it was amazing to see two boys who were used to modern PCs and games consoles getting excited about writing programs that repeated lines of texts, changed the screen colour or made a tinny siren noise.

I drifted into my own nostalgic fog of days with my Commodore 64 doing the same thing or waiting for 5 minutes waiting for Daly Thompson’s Decathlon to load so that I could work on my repetitive strain injury.

Cut to a bemused Mum whose summary of the situation was, “Looks a bit boring doesn’t it?”

The fact is, not everybody wants to work hard to get technology to do something that seems obvious and simple and even fewer want to do it for something that they don’t see the point of or have no interest in.

PLM is the same.  PLM has taken a journey from managing CAD data that for some still places it squarely in the engineering camp.  As the scope of PLM changes to incorporate more information like company-wide stage and gate processes and business case documentation, the scope of users broadens.  Will your marketing or sales team be excited by the new system?

Let’s be honest, PLM systems aren’t sexy.   They manage complex data and rely on pretty firm rules to catalogue information in a structured way. 

If you’re an engineer and want to find a drawing of a particular widget, the benefits of understanding the system might be compelling.  Or, you might also be used to using earlier versions of software that were much harder so you can tangibly see progress.

If you’re a marketer who wants to write a bit supporting information into a business case, extra steps to find the right bit, check it out, change it, check it back in are likely to be less popular.  After all, the precursors to these systems are usually Microsoft Office and references are common tools like Google or Facebook.  Like it or not, these are things that people feel comfortable on because they haven’t had to spend a lot of time learning how to use. 

Software companies need to work with their clients to understand requirements and make the solutions as intuitive and user friendly as possible but that is only half of the battle.  Implementers need to be honest with their users and help them to see the benefits and overcome the “niggles” that make PLM software different.

How are you going to manage the expectations of your users?

Posted on March 14th, 2011 Tags: ,
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Love to all affected by Japanese earthquake and tsunami

We would like to send our love and thoughts to everybody affected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Posted on March 11th, 2011 in News / Blog | No Comments »

Would you give it away for nothing?

I love getting free stuff.  So I was excited on Tuesday to find that Robin Pecknold (lead singer of Fleet Foxes) had posted three new solo songs to download.  His explanation was, “These aren’t Fleet Foxes songs, but I didn’t know where else to disseminate it. Pretty mellow jams.”

Now stuff like this is really exciting to someone like me.  I don’t believe in illegal downloading … I don’t believe it’s fair to the artists involved, particularly the more obscure artists that I tend to listen to … but I do like that artists are not so precious about out-takes and demos.

Typically, these things would be stored away and given a special release; often a token gesture to deliver an album against contract or something for the hard-core fans.  Now they are thrown out onto the internet in a “take it or leave it” gesture.

Obviously, there has been a technological enabler for this type of attitude – announcements are made on blogs or twitter feeds and files are distributed through file sharing sites.  The traditional need for pressing and promotion is completely non-existent. 

It does raise another question for me, “What is the cost of an idea?”

Last November, I freely downloaded four albums worth of bedroom demos by Atlas Sound, the solo project of Deerhunter’s Brandon Cox.  After about 24 hours of the material being available, Sony blocked one of the albums despite having no claim over the artist or any of the material (Sony were not able to explain why they did this and subsequently unblocked it).

Obviously, the idea that Sony intentionally did anything to prevent the distribution of free material is pure speculation but you could understand why they might see it as a threat.  After all, ideas are Sony’s bread and butter, not just from an artistic point of view but also in terms of intellectual property for their technology wing.

But is there a difference between ideas for songs and ideas for new technology or new products?

Well, it might depend on what you are doing with them.  Your innovation pipeline has to link to a strategy of what you want your organisation or brand to be.  It might be an album track or just a “pretty mellow jam” that you don’t know what to do with.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about the new Radiohead release King of Limbs.  The second track on this album was “Good Morning Mr Magpie”, a track that has been bouncing around in an acoustic form for a few years. – http://www.plmmadesimple.com/news-blog/radiohead-a-great-band-and-brand

The value of information is a key question for your PLM system.  The use of PLM is not just about protecting the intellectual property of the ideas in development or production; there are benefits to be attained by leveraging the ideas that aren’t quite right for the market yet. 

How are you going to store this information and, more importantly, how are you going to keep track of those ideas to revisit later or avoid constantly revisiting ideas that might never work?

Of course, you could always just give it away … if you’re not going to use it, where’s the harm in that?

Whatever you decide to do, the key change to this is behaviour.  Getting people to appreciate the true value of your information is a major factor in a PLM implementation.  Without this, can you be confident that you are getting a “single version of the truth”?

Posted on March 10th, 2011 Tags: , , ,
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Smoking legislation is an “anti-change”

Today, the British Government have published new anti-smoking measures as part of the strategy to push down smoking rates.

The main element of the plan is to ban the display of tobacco products in shops, starting with supermarkets in 2012 and smaller shops in 2015.  I was interested to see some of the comments for this story on the BBC:

“Has anyone considered the tax shortfall that we would have if everyone gave up, smoking generates 10bn per year and costs the nhs about 2.”

“I smoke and I have no intention of giving up, although I never smoke indoors. By lowering my life expectancy I will be less of a burden to the state.”

“Maybe the smokers of the country myself included should consider not smoking for two weeks. The loss in tax revenue would cripple the government!”

As a company, wouldn’t you love a customer base that was openly willing to die for your product?

I’m a recently reformed smoker, so I know how difficult it is to stop (8 weeks and counting … not including a few “moments of weakness”).  I personally think that these measures are a good thing – I know walking into a shop and not seeing tobacco for sale will help me.

And this seems to be what some of the detractors are ignoring; these measures are being put in place because research suggests that it will discourage people from taking up smoking and help people like me who are trying to give up.  They are not the ultimate solution.

Judging by the reaction from smokers, an outright ban would be seen as the Government removing freedom of choice and so is not the way to tackle the problem.  However, it has been over 50 years since the link between smoking and cancer was established and education alone has not worked.  A bit of “nannying” is necessary!

So the Government’s approach to hit selective parts of the problem is correct.  After all, the initial reaction to the indoor smoking ban in 2007 was the same, but now even Commentator Number 2 above makes it clear that they “never smoke indoors”.

Every change is a journey, this one being no exception.  The overall strategy must be to stop people dying from smoking related illnesses. But something so large needs to be broken down into tangible steps that will deliver gradually.

The other measure that didn’t make it through was legislation to force tobacco companies into plain, unbranded packets. However, it is still up for review by the end of the year.

I found this proposal particularly interesting …

The Government are using consumer insights against tobacco products.  Despite claims that blank packets will not make a difference, I know from experience that branding is important for some smokers: there are brands that I wouldn’t have been seen dead smoking (pardon the pun).

Is smoking legislation anti-PLM?  How would you create a product that is completely unappealing to its customers?

Posted on March 9th, 2011 Tags: , , ,
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