Companies revolve around products - they define the company’s identity and are the source of its wealth and revenue. Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a framework that helps companies manage their product information and follow business processes through its full lifecycle. At the very basic level, PLM is about managing all processes right from its ideation, through its development, growth, maturity and discontinuation. The most beneficial aspects of a PLM system include material management, change management, collaboration solutions, product quality, product enhancements and statutory compliances. Properly implemented PLM systems allow companies to reach the market quicker, improve collaboration, reduce prototyping costs and when integrated with a good analytics tool can identify potential sale opportunities and revenue contributions, maximize supply chain collaboration, and reduce environmental impacts at end of product life.
PLM and the Cloud
A few decades back, most of the components a product required were either manufactured in-house or outsourced and stored in the inventory. Not anymore. Today's products can be manufactured multi-location, spanning even entire continents. And more complex the product; more the reliance on outsourcing components needed to manufacture it. As an example, while a toy aero plane can be manufactured in-house, there is no way a commercial aero plane can be manufactured completely with in-house components. Most of the components, especially the sensors and the electronic gadgetry is manufactured by someone else.
Managing company databases that have workstations in different locations (which can span different continents) is a complicated task. No matter how sophisticated the software, network latency and connectivity issues can make managing common databases, CAD drawings and projects, materials, and maintaining different stages of product development a difficult task. This is where PLM on cloud helps. PLM deployed on the cloud stores, manages and processes data rather than a local computer by using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet. Users can connect to the PLM system via a web browser, Office apps or mobile devices.
What is Cloud Computing?
Let us first understand cloud computing before we discuss merits and demerits of PLM on the cloud. Cloud computing is a form of computing in which networks, data storage, applications, security and development tools are all enabled via the internet, as opposed to a local computer or an on-premise server in the enterprise. Since companies do not need to invest into computer software or hardware, leveraging cloud computing allows them to optimize costs and increase their offerings. This in turn fosters faster innovation, flexible resources, and scale economies. In short, cloud computing means you use the cloud vendor’s infrastructure, allowing the vendor to take care of all aspects of hosting like the OS, fast speed, reliability, security and scalability in order to concentrate on your core competency. Since you need to pay only what you opt for, this result is in saving on the operational cost. There is a significant shift in workload in a cloud computing system. The cloud computing systems interface software, which can be as essential as a web browser, is all that the user's computer needs to be able to run; the cloud's network handles the rest.
Deploying PLM in the Cloud
PLM systems were introduced about 20+ years back. As software and computing power advanced, the PLM software has kept evolving. This has made them very powerful, and very complex. While this may not pose challenges for a small company, it can prove to be an exhaustive task for a large scale enterprise to manage all the data, especially the data that has been accumulated over the years. Running a PLM system in an enterprise with thousands of engineers feeding it daily with fresh CAD data, which then undergoes acceptance processes and later publication to, for example, an ERP system will require some capable infrastructure, including dedicated machines for the database, publishing engine, content and the application itself. Add to that the need to make, store (and restore) backups on a daily basis and you’ll see that hosting and maintaining a PLM system can be quite a challenge even for skilled IT departments – especially if they are not very familiar with the system itself. For most manufacturing companies, the focus is on product development and innovation, rather than on managing IT infrastructure. A highly flexible PLM that is deployed on the cloud allows manufacturing companies to do just that. One such PLM software is Windchill from PTC. Windchill’s 100% web-based PLM architecture has been designed to easily integrate with existing IT, internet, and security infrastructures for remote work and multi-site collaboration.
Cloud PLM helps manufacturers build more competitive products by helping organizations:
This is the age of Industry 4.0. One of the building blocks of this paradigm is Big Data. Big data is nothing but the proper analysis of the huge data churned out by various sensors attached to various manufacturing machines. With PLM that is deployed on the cloud, such data analysis becomes easier as all the data resides in a single place. India will soon roll out 5G services. Huge amounts of data are generated every day by smart devices that require real-time processing and analytical actions. 5G gives IoT devices fast access to cloud infrastructure and enables IoT networks by maximizing signal strength and minimizing latency issues. This will prove to be very beneficial for cloud based PLM.
To Cloud or not to Cloud
So, is PLM on the cloud the only way ahead? Well, not exactly. There are some concerns that need to be tackled, especially for smaller companies. For one, if the PLM software is not easy to use, administration and configuration can pose a challenge. Locally deployed PLM is optimized for LAN. If cloud deployed PLM is not integrated properly, it can hamper the performance. Secondly, with hackers on the rise, security is still a concern. However, cloud stalwarts like Amazon, Microsoft and Google have adequate checks in place to counter such threats. And such security threats are present even for locally deployed PLM. As cloud infrastructure becomes available widely, and 5G is available readily, such concerns will be mitigated very soon, and cloud based PLM will certainly be the way of the future. Not all software is built equal, and PLM is not an exception. Forward looking companies need to consider a PLM solution that will be easy to deploy on LAN as well as on the cloud if they want to benefit from the advantages that Industry 4.0 provides, which includes the likes of AI, ML and IoT