Transformation is a real consequence of PLM (a good one)

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I had the opportunity to return to a client which I worked with over three years ago.  My first contact with this multi-billion dollar Medical Device Company was to develop a PLM strategy for the R&D organization, mainly focused on the early design experiments.  At the time, they were already leaders in their market but still used paper lab notebooks for their initial engineering design and experiments.  Over the course of the project, I found that they understood the need for change but many felt that they were being forced to update a process that had worked well for them and had made them industry leaders.  After working with them for nine weeks, the strategy finalized and delivered to them which lead to a three year series of project that I was not involved with, but others in Integware worked on the implementation.

I returned recently to this same organization and found a very different organization.  Where before there were concerns, fear and disbelief in the value of PLM I found a team who had fully embraced the value proposition and were actively seeking more.  Now, this was not utopia and there were still some issues with the system, but what system is perfect: Right?  The nature of the issues were not about the value they see in the system but around the training, User Interface, early decisions for data loads (not enough data) and missing information in the system (because that information structures had not been designed or implemented yet).  The new culture of the organization was one of wanting more and actively attempting to find and connect the missing pieces of information. 

An example of the value of the new system was seen during one of our interview sessions where at the end a member of the core team mentioned that during the meeting she was contacted by a co-worker looking for historical information about a product and what changes had occurred on that product.  The co-worker (who had not been trained in the system yet) had been going from person to person for 3-4 days and not found any solid data but the core team member used the system and in 5 minutes had a formatted chronological report with links to the original information sent via e-mail to the co-worker.  Clearly demonstrating the power of PLM in the ability to find and re-use information. 

In my profession it is rare to see the results so clearly of the work that we do.  In this case we presented a value proposition, map of functions and timeline for this implementation.  I worked on other projects with other customers and when I returned it was a transformed organization.  Their new views filled me with as much a sense of pride as I saw in them.  I am proud to be working with this organization again and very excited as to what the next phase of their maturity will bring. 

Kevin VanDoren,

Consulting Services Manager (Integware)