Interview

PLM : Providing Exclusive Platform for Industrial Growth

Posted on 01 February, 2010 | Tags:

Like in many other industries, Product Lifecycle Management Or PLM can multi-task in today's Chemical Industry in terms of manage, monitor and execute products in a more controlled manner with an objective to better overall quality of the product. Interestingly, it can offer aid to global recession pinch by drawing the cost of production. Vivek Marwaha, Director Marketing Siemens PLM Software shares his views with CEW

-Vivek Marwaha, Director Marketing, Siemens PLM Software

How do you view Product Lifecycle Management?
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) can be simply defined as an information strategy, it builds a coherent data structure by consolidating systems. One can also call PLM an enterprise strategy it lets global organizations work as a single team to design, produce, support and retire products, while capturing best practices and lessons learned along the way.
At Siemens PLM Software, we view PLM as an information strategy, an enterprise strategy and, ultimately, a transformational business strategy. We see it as a comprehensive approach to innovation built on enterprise-wide access to a common repository of product information and processes.

Where does PLM fit today in the Chemical Industry?
While discrete manufacturing industries like auto, aerospace, machinery etc adopted product lifecycle management (PLM) software and practices a number of years ago, adoption of a product lifecycle management platform is happening only  now for chemical and process industries. To date, process industries have relied mainly on home-grown solutions that cover only limited aspects of the product development/management process much like discreet industries, by implementing PLM solutions,  these companies can get new products to market faster, in more controlled fashion that cuts down on wasted development costs and increases the percentage of revenues from new products.
PLM for process/chemical industry provides a holistic platform for collaboration, knowledge retention and superior execution helping manage risk and take waste out of the new product development process. PLM can play an important role in improving collaboration and knowledge sharing throughout the value chain, thus enabling more effective collaboration with suppliers and partners to improve overall efficiency. It can also help capture best practices and replicate them across multiple projects and plants to improve overall operational performance.
Within the process industries, different segments have different needs and priorities for their adoption of PLM solutions. For instance, specialty chemical manufacturers seek to better manage their product formulations and link them to specific customer requests food-and-beverage companies wish to enhance their capabilities for raw-material substitutions and recipe management The pharmaceutical sector seeks out PLM solutions that will improve its management of large product portfolios. Compliance with regulatory requirements is a common driver for PLM adoption, across all industry segments

What is the new synchronous technology and what will be the impact of this technology on the industry?
Synchronous technology combines the best of constraint driven techniques with direct modeling in a technology that will cut new product development and introduction by 50 percent and provide millions of dollars in product development productivity gains. Technology advancements result in the first-ever design solution that simultaneously synchronizes geometry and rules through a new decision-making inference engine that accelerates innovation.
This technology will fundamentally change how users design with these tools. We at Siemens PLM Software have spent years researching the fundamental issues inherent with present day CAD systems. What we have with synchronous technology removes many of those barriers for expansion so we see limitless leverage of this technology throughout all stages of the product lifecycle. The technology is extensible for a number of years and right now seems boundless in terms of its application.
It will change innovation in this industry as it provides the flexibility and freedom to evolve designs and make changes at will, but without losing the power of the knowledge gained with constraint and dimension driven systems allowing engineers and designers to do what they do best rather than focus on how to manipulate a CAD system. This all translates to using designers' brainpower to innovate rather than how to manipulate the CAD system.

How is this going to be a breakthrough technology in Digital Product Development?
Synchronous technology captures ideas as fast as the user thinks them, with up to 100 times faster design experience. Fast design technology automates the implementation of planned or unplanned design changes to seconds versus hours.
Improved multi-CAD re-use technology allows user to re-use data without remodeling whereas new user experience provides a new user interaction experience that simplifies CAD and makes 3D as easy to use as 2D.

How will the chemical process industry be benefited from the use of PLM?
Like most other industries, today the top line revenue and bottom line profitability can only improve from new products that actually sell, better facilities management and process controls, and a greater degree of collaboration and visibility into the way things are done that ultimately leads to a more flexible and responsive enterprise, this is what a PLM system aims to enable. Applications like document management, project and digital workflow management act as core PLM solutions for process industries.
The PLM system will support a company's New Product Development initiatives (new formulation), develop labeling, transform the formula into a producible recipe including production steps and sequences, scale it up and launch it to production.
A PLM system will serve as a knowledge management system providing access to formulas and past trials in a central recipe repository that will allow chemical process based manufacturers eg, specialty chemicals / pharma to handle new product requests more efficiently by calling up past experience. It serves as a system to help establish a framework for achieving regulatory compliance, furthermore PLM also acts as a system for specification management and a foundation for functions that bridge into supply chain areas like supplier management, and data synchronization.

What is the role of PLM in the industry especially during the global meltdown?
The challenges that are faced by today's manufacturers are perennial but have compounded owing to the global meltdown. How to turn more ideas into successful products quickly; how to optimize available resources and for greater productivity and more efficient processes and how to optimize the cost and quality of their products.
PLM is an important set of applications that when understood and embraced will impact the cost, quality and delivery of product more than any other technology. And there's nothing more important to a company than the product it makes especially in today's challenging times.
In effect, PLM can help companies to execute the activities that are required to build the right product and build the product right. Building the right product means meeting customer requirements in terms of time, function, performance, price etc. Building the product right means executing design and production processes that meet the requirements of cost, quality, reliability, sustainability etc. In order for manufacturers to be able to simultaneously build the right product and build the product right they must develop a rich platform of product and process knowledge to underpin and support continuous innovation across all disciplines and phases of the product's lifecycle.
The bottom line is that PLM can help address challenges that have accentuated because of the economic slowdown; PLM is critical to help companies accelerate time to market, extend returns form products by quickly introducing market driven enhancements, increase product profitability through reduced warranty costs and optimizing manufacturing processes and resources, reduce build costs by minimizing costly prototypes and eliminating manufacturing errors, reuse knowledge to gain efficiencies in processes and eliminate non-value processes.