Comments on: ERP Will Dominate PLM, Or Will It?

By: Dima.Kruchuev

Dima.Kruchuev — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:08:37 +0000

I fully agree with all the positive feedback on the blog, although there is little negative.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:31:21 +0000

Oleg are they moving to CAD/Design/Visualization? If they were don’t you think they would have taken out someone like PTC? At multiple points in time PTC could have been purchased for short money… Do they really care about this stuff or is this more lip service?

In MHO CAD is not that important to them because they own the BOM. The control point to Release is the Bill-of-Material not the files and ERP owns the BOM. Visualization has no value at Release, it is only valuable before (Design) and after (Manufacture). This is why SAP invested in Right Hemisphere even though they owned visualization technology (Design based solution). Right Hemisphere provides them a Manufacturing based solution and adds one more presure point against PLM vendors.

By: admin

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 13:04:27 +0000

My point wasn’t that they have ignored it but more that it is not seen as strategic and PLM as an opportunity was not on thier radar until there was more than file management. Besidea it is not like customers were out of control before there was file management. At one point I worded in the print room managing file draws. And lets not forget the high tech micro film that I am sure we can still find in use in some places.

I am sure we can put someone on the moon, release a hot new car and crack open the blender market with a hot new concept WITHOUT EVER MANAGING OUR CAD FILES. For instance I know a very large medical deveice manufacture that still does not manage thier CAD files – they simply manage an image file of the drawing within Agile (SAP product right). I can imagine 100′s of sales people have banged on the door telling them they are out of control, not compliant, could be more innovative, only if they managed the CAD files… but still they do not.

So is CAD file management required or just evil?

By: oleg Shilovitsky

oleg Shilovitsky — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:22:47 +0000

Chris, I think main driver is move to more connected enterprise environment. Time ago, ERP was leading release processes and, as you said, even didn’t know about “these CAD files”. There is a fundamental shift from “to feed ERP” with released design in PDF format and design to manufacture processes streamline. In my view focus of PLM on that. If ERP vendor can do it too? Yes, I think this is very possible scenario…. Especially since they (ERP) are moving from minimalist approach mentioned by Stan, to more advanced involvement of CAD/Design/Visualization. Alternative will be to have BPM vendors on board to capture cross domain processes.
Some additional thoughts about it-
http://plmtwine.com/2009/08/29/plm-prompt-plm-and-the-rise-of-business-process-management/
http://plmtwine.com/2009/09/03/plm-and-multi-domain-business-processes/
Regards, Oleg.

By: Stan Przybylinski

Stan Przybylinski — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:27:14 +0000

I am not sure I agree with ERP vendors ignoring CAD integration, at least not in the case of SAP. They went to the extent of banding their CAD integration providers together into a cabal, the PLM Alliance http://www.sapplmalliance.com/.

They can’t ignore it. They just have to do enough with it to make it easy for the IT managers they control to argue that “SAP can do it.” If they can make it a question, people who have made the decision to spend millions on SAP will be able to keep the PLM side of the argument at bay.