Pre-Conference Workshop: Future Federated PLM Capabilities

In the ever-evolving world of engineering and product lifecycle management (PLM), staying ahead of industry trends and standards is crucial. I had the privilege of attending a dynamic workshop before the CIMdata PDM Roadmap and Eurostep PDT Conference today, where industry leaders and innovators converged to discuss the standards in dynamic, heterogeneous environments and how to adopt them in manufacturing industries. Esteemed customers like Hilti, Safran, and BAE Systems shared invaluable insights, reflecting their pioneering work in the field. Equally impressive was the presence of leading solution providers such as Eurostep, Lynxwork, CIMdata, and IBM. Each brought unique perspectives and solutions to the table, highlighting the diverse yet interconnected nature of our industry. This gathering was not just a meeting of minds but a beacon for the future of engineering and PLM, showcasing the synergy between customer needs and technological advancements.

Presentation 1: Saab's HELIPLE-2 and Federated PLM by Erik Herzog

Erik Herzog of Saab Aerospace provided an insightful introduction to the HELIPLE-2 project at Saab, a proposal for industry standards in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). The session opened with a robust dialogue on enhancing PLM technology, emphasizing community involvement and collaborative initiatives. This workshop segment saw a rich exchange of experiences and challenges faced in PLM across diverse industries, highlighting the necessity for digital transformation and the integration of innovative practices in engineering fields.

Notably, the discussion shifted towards the critical aspects of PLM standardization and interoperability. Speakers, including industry experts from Safran Group and independent consultants, underscored the significance of tackling interoperability and data migration issues. These insights were particularly resonant, with QCM consulting elaborating on the aerospace industry's specific challenges in standardization and data migration, emphasizing the need for a cohesive approach.

The workshop concluded with a focus on the practical implementation of PLM systems in manufacturing settings. Participants deliberated on various systems, such as Eurostep's ShareAspace, with an emphasis on aspects like traceability and configuration management. This part of the workshop not only highlighted the technicalities involved in PLM implementation but also set the stage for future collaborations and joint activities aimed at advancing PLM practices.

Breakout 1: Pain Points and Experiences

During the first breakout session, titled "PLM Pains and Experience," I was at a table with Francesco Saverio of Hilti, Didier Collin of Safran, Jad Elkhoury of LynxWork, and Sylvain Marie of Eurostep. We delved into the intricacies of PLM architecture and integration challenges. Francesco highlighted the challenges for standards at his company, particularly the lack of configuration management in product development. Jad, our moderator, echoed these sentiments, pointing out the challenges posed by monolithic PLM systems and advocating for a data-centric approach. The conversation then shifted to standardizing tools for traceability, configuration management, and interoperability across different business units. This standardization was seen as crucial to balance global tool usage with unique business unit needs, with speakers discussing the potential of a semantic tool or ontology to standardize names and conventions company-wide.

The session also focused on product development and PLM architecture. Discussions centered around ontology modeling, spare parts management, and interoperability challenges, particularly in the context of SAP. Jad emphasized the lack of global configuration and traceability in business unit processes and expressed concerns about the feasibility and cost of implementing a digital thread across multiple systems. I suggested a comprehensive digital thread spanning from requirements to operations, incorporating customer feedback to enhance the product development process.

During the summary with all the groups, Erik addressed improving data management and collaboration within companies. Challenges in managing business units, suppliers, and partners were highlighted, alongside the lack of data governance and integration in product development. Speakers noted that PLM is often seen as a monolithic system, misaligned with other company processes, causing governance issues and slowing product development. The significance of enterprise search and indexing, as well as ontologies for data searchability, was discussed. I provided a practical example of an aircraft maintenance worker's struggle due to poor data searchability, underlining the real-world impact of these issues. The session concluded with a focus on the challenges of data governance and interoperability in PLM, especially in a cross-functional team setting, and the importance of effective collaboration across different departments and disciplines in the manufacturing industry.

Presentation 2: Identifying Standards for Federated PLM by Judith Crockford and Torbj?rn Holm of Eurostep

The second presentation, "Standards around Federated PLM," commenced with a focus on the development of machine-readable standards and ontologies across various industries.

Judith discussed the significant strides being made in this area, particularly referencing the work of the Industrial Ontologies Foundry. This part of the presentation also touched upon the challenges faced in the biomedical industry concerning the understanding and implementation of ontologies. This highlighted a growing need for standardization and shared practices across different sectors, emphasizing the critical role of ontologies in achieving this.

Another important standard shown was OBI (ISO 23726) that came from the Norweigan Oil&Gas industry but has the advantage of a leveled approach using OWL2:

The most discussed standard of the workshop was the OSLC standard as shown below. The most critical aspect here is the existence of both the semantic layer and a core layer for implementation:

There was discussion on whether the major PLM platforms support OSLC and in descending order of openness to this standard, Teamcenter and Windchill both have implemented parts of OSLC for external integrations while Dassault Systèmes has OSLC but only for system components within their sphere of influence.

The discussion then shifted towards standardization in industrial automation, especially within the pharmaceutical industry. Youssef Hooshmand of NIO underscored the crucial role of interoperability for efficient operations in this sector. Meanwhile, Eran Gery of IBM delved into the benefits of using ontologies for precise modeling and automated reasoning, presenting a compelling case for the superiority of these methods over traditional UML modeling. This part of the presentation underscored the advantages of ontological approaches in enhancing quality and precision in industrial processes.

Lastly, the presentation covered the aspects of traceability, integration, and standardization across various domains. Participants poke about their experiences in a working group particularly focusing on traceability and semantic classifications for properties. The group also discussed the challenges and possibilities of integrating systems using diverse technologies, including UML. The session concluded with insights into the standardization and modeling for a Pan-European project, discussing the feasibility of integrating different technologies to enhance technical, developmental, operational, and realization efficiency. This final segment reinforced the importance of a data-centric approach in software development and the value of collaborative efforts in standardizing practices and pursuing joint activities.

Breakout 2 - Needs for Joint Activities for Achieving Federated PLM Adoption of Standards

We were back in our groups again and discussed the standards and how to get consensus and deployment moving.

The second breakout session centered around developing standards for product development and digital twins. Participants discussed building a community around Federated PLM capabilities, emphasizing the need for collaboration with other organizations. The Aerospace and Defense PLM Action Group and the ISO 95 standard were highlighted as key initiatives in the aerospace and defense industry. However, some people expressed frustration over the slow adoption of standards, using STEP242 adoption as an example. The session also addressed the challenges of standardizing data exchange between software systems, with speakers discussing the implementation of OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) for seamless integration.

Interoperability standards in the construction industry were also a focus, with suggestions like using blockchain technology for supply chain management. Additionally, the session touched upon software integration and use cases, emphasizing the need to minimize dependencies and define use cases for effective system integration. Concerns were raised about the practicality of implementing OSLC as a separate application and its impact on user adoption. Speakers also discussed the importance of identifying use cases and organizing data for integration with different tools, highlighting the necessity of an authoritative system like Eurostep ShareAspace to validate data sharing.

The session concluded with discussions on configuration management in software development and the need for standardizing use cases in PLM software development. The use of ShareAspace for mechanical engineering integration was mentioned as an example of current practices. The importance of understanding end-user needs to inform standardization efforts was emphasized, with suggestions for leveraging existing tools to demonstrate interoperability use cases. Challenges in collaborative research projects, such as licensing complexities, were also discussed. The session highlighted the need for incremental implementation of PLM systems, with a focus on vision and standards for successful integration, underscoring the importance of standards and innovation in product development to enhance flexibility and market relevance.

Conclusions

The workshop concluded on a consensus about the importance of adopting standards and a shared feeling of frustration at the difficulty of selling the idea to C-level executives. It was suggested that proposing Use Cases based on common Personas were a good way to explain the use of the standards and justify investment in developing them.

Erik concluded the session with a positive note about how he appreciated how the vision of each of the four breakout teams was more comprehensive and strategic than he had expected, and invited folks to join the Federated PLM Interest Group on LinkedIn.

On to the main show tomorrow!