In my market research in PLM, PDM and related fields, and my consulting work with engineering organizations, including those that we refer to as SMBs: small- to mid-size businesses, I frequently find that they tend to think about PLM as a tool ideally suited for large organizations with sizable engineering teams designing complex highly engineered products.
Looking at the profile and size of engineering companies using PDM software, especially those showcased by mainstream PDM and PLM vendors, one might easily reach the conclusion that these systems are, indeed, designed with the “big guys” in mind. This perception may be reinforced by PLM and ERP vendors that have announced products designed for the SMB market and abandoned them a few years later, when rosy revenue expectations weren’t achieved. Remember, for example, PTC’s ProductPoint and SAP’s Business By Design?
Small engineering teams have come to think of PLM software as unnecessarily complex and limiting operational flexibility, not to mention the high cost of the software, IT overhead, and the pain of keeping the software up to date.
In part, this perception is underscored by enterprise software vendors that use the same approach to design products and licensing terms for large companies and SMBs; they think of SMBs as though they were just like large enterprises, only smaller. Reminds me of the medieval paintings showing babies as miniature adults.
SMBs and small engineering teams tend to cultivate a culture of informal, open and flexible workplace. They frown upon the Byzantine organizational structure of some very large traditional product companies and the inflexibility imposed by formal PDM tools they use. Instead, SMBs exploit small team size, flexible and nimble culture, and the skills and capabilities of individual engineers to manage product development using a minimal set of data management tools.
However, despite the stodgy and bureaucratic culture—or perception thereof—of some traditional product companies, many of them are undoubtedly successful; and they use PLM tools effectively to conceptualize, design and manufacture innovative and profitable products.
So is it conceivable that some of the practices employed by large enterprises could benefits SMB? That adopting some aspects of product data management discipline might help SMB be more efficient and resilient?
I am going to explore this topic in a new blog series Is PLM Software Only for Big Guys? In which I will discuss processes and best practices employed by large product design and engineering organizations, and how they use PDM to make better product related decisions. In particular, I am going to discuss those practices that I believe smaller organizations should consider adopting.
The first blog post Check-in, Check-out, Check-in…Why bother? I know where my CAD Files Are! lists some of topics I am working on. Please comment and suggest additional CAD file management and product development topics you think small and medium-size engineering organizations should consider.