Tag Archives: automotive

It’s All About Your Niche, Do You WANT to Leave There?

9 Apr

Back to reading my original blog muse, Oleg Shilovitsky.  In a recent blog (“Ugly vs. Cool”) he took PLM vendors to task re: their product user interface.  It got me thinking:

What do my previous company, CIMx Software, and my current company, Vinimaya, have in common?

Although there are many differences, and many other reasons for their success, both software companies are, in part, successful because of the failings of another industry’s functionality and user interface.

Ask any PLM vendor and they will say that they support manufacturing.  Truth be told, they have products designed and built for the design engineer and management of design projects.  The user interface is designed by engineers and for engineers.   The schemas and taxonomies of the PLM system do not support the workings of the manufacturing shop, and the user interface is way too complex for the casual user.  In the case of CIMx  Software, there have been numerous attempts by the engineering organizations at CIMx customers to ‘standard ize’ on the PLM environment for manufacturing and shop floor.  At one particulart customer, there were close to 1/2 dozen ‘pilots’ of the PLM system in manufacturing engineering.  They all failed to provide what CIMx had out of the box.

The same can be said for ERP ‘eProc’ applications and Vinimaya.  If ERP vendors provided simple federated search across all of their internal and external suppliers with a user interface like Google or Amazon, there would be no need for SmartSearch™.   That’s not the case.  eProc systems tend to have the same laborious click-heavy, multi-screen UI issues as most ERP and PLM functions.

Why is this so?  It boils down to two elements, legacy and domain expertise.

1) Legacy.  One of my favorite quotes about the software industry is “God created the universe in six days because he didn’t have an installed base”.  It is extremely difficult for established vendors in a particular space (ERP, PLM) to completely re-write their large monolithic systems.  They can certainly apply a web ‘veneer’ and update icons and other visual elements, but it’s the same old code underneath.

2) Domain Expertise.  I recall the amazement in the voice of a colleague in the MES space when he had to explain to their PLM partner the  concept of a work order.  You may know the technology behind and engineering bill of materials backwards and forwards, but that does not mean your expertise has any value down on the shop floor.

So, where do you want to live, Mr. ERP vendor?  Mr. PLM vendor?  The more you decide to venture outside of your area of core competence, the more you will have to be concerned about functionality and UI, and the less likely you will be able to compete with the likes of CIMx and Vinimaya.

- RTR

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If It’s All About Process, Why Focus On Features?

22 Feb

The following was tweeted from the PLM Conference at the Westin in Munich this morning by Gabriel Gheorghiu:

“Marc Halpern (Gartner) some of the best #PLM implementations done without PLM software. Processes matter most #plm2012“

If this is true, and I believe it is, then why on God’s green earth do companies still go through the same drill, asking for a feature list, looking at features, providing RFIs/RFPs that talk about features (example: 314 features in an RFP that we answered last year).

What do features matter?  It’s ALL ABOUT THE PROCESS.  It doesn’t matter how shiny it is, whether or not it’s on the cloud, what technology platform it runs on.  Here’s all that matters:

Do you have a reliable, efficient process?

Does this software make that process better?

’nuff said

- RTR

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They’re Doing It Without You!

14 Feb

I owe this inspiration to SAP’s Paul Boris.

There is a long-running dialog on the LinkedIn Manufacturing Execution Systems Group, started by Luigi De Bernardini , entitled “Does any ERP need an MES?”  It’s been up for about two weeks.

BTW: Paul’s answer was

“That question is really like asking do you really need a heart AND lungs ?”

… but that’s not the the inspiration.  The inspiration came from his opening paragraph, which was both humorous and insightful, and I told Paul I would steal it:

“I believe everyone who manufactures anything has an MES – it might be a specific Manufacturing Execution System, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets or even Many Employees Scurrying around (sorry) – but they have something.”

After laughing out loud, I realized this really brought home something that is key to all software vendors selling in the Manufacturing Space.

Nobody is sitting around waiting for your application, Sparky!

They have stuff to make.  They have to order material, build stuff, cut chips, deal with the day-to-day issues that manufacturers face.  They are lean.  They have no time.  Covey Quandrant 2 activities?  Not so much.

When they finally DO have time to look at your shiny new application, be careful to look at their body language, facial expressions.  What are they telling you, once you are actually paying attention to them?

“… it looks impressive, but how long will my shop be down in order to make this work?  I don’t have ANY time,  so where am I going to find implementation time?  PLEASE don’t tell me I have to ‘re-do’ my old work in your system.”

Why do these shiny new applications fail to generate excitement in the plant manager’s heart?  Because they don’t take into account that the work is being done now without them.

You have two choices:

1) Build a compelling case for why the shop should be disrupted for months (if you can)

2) Build an application that can be implemented without disrupting production

Learn more about option 2  here

- RTR

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Reality-Based Software

23 Jan

The ongoing discussion started by Jim Brown (Tech Clarity) re: “A Maturity Model for Product Data Accessibility?” at the PLM CAD CAM Network group in LinkedIn continues to be thoughtful and insightful.  Jim responded recently with this quote regarding ‘sloppy data’

For the record, I wasn’t suggested that individuals should be sloppy – the pursuit of accuracy and order are important.  But instead saying that we live in environments that tend towards chaos no matter how hard we try, and we need to keep doing the job that customers pay for (designing and producing great products) in that reality.

YES!!!!

It is so common in our industry to assume we know best.  I hear software people talking about “educating the customer”.  Not so fast, Sparky.  I maintain we have MUCH more to learn FROM our customers and prospects than we can ever teach them.  Do we have something to offer?   You bet….  but don’t prescribe before you diagnose.

In the paperless manufacturing space, this “know it all” behavior is rampant.  We can improve your bottom line, provide new efficiencies that you never thought possible, make your key traceability and quality data accessible electronically.

All you have to do is… change everything!  Those MS word work instructions?  Sorry, you have to re-enter them in OUR environment, so they’ll be ‘useful’.  No, we don’t have a converter, but cut and paste should work for those 10,000 docs, right?  Those ERP routings?  Everyone knows that the ERP routings are incomplete, we’ll just take over that task as well.   Oh, by the way?  for this to work MOST efficiently, we need to own the BOM as well..

Is it any wonder that most companies (especially in the small to medium business space) look at paperless manufacturing with a sense of dread?  If they had the time to turn their organization upside down, they wouldn’t need the help!  At the end of the day, they need to produce product.  Everything else STARTS in 2nd place.  I imagine re-keying in existing information is well down the list.

The approach that needs to be taken by software vendors is what I am referring to in the blog title: 

Reality-based Software.   

Paraphrasing Jim Brown, software vendors need to do the job that customers pay for in the customer’s reality not the vendor’s reality.  Learn more here…

-RTR

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The Problem with [PLM/ERP/MES] Integration… Is it People?

20 Jan

Since I started blogging, the ‘inspiration’ comes from two sources. 

1) Interesting things I read online or elsewhere (I am not completely paperless)…

2) Bolts of lightning

This is one of the 2nd variety.  A few of us here at CIMx were having a philosophical discussion on manufacturing process, when the dots were connected, the switch was thrown and the lightning bolt commenced. 

Is there something missing in the integration discussion?

Integrations have gotten more complex.  Technologist will continue to advance technology.  Flat file transfer becomes neutral interface tables which becomes XML and web services.  Automated error recovery.  Electronic alerts.

So why do integration projects still run overtime, over budget?  Why do the most painstaking designs still produce code that doesn’t do the job when push comes to shove?  Could it be… people?

In a previous company, I developed an integration for an automotive OEM.  This integration provided updated scheduling information for the production of stamping dies.  There was a 2″ looseleaf notebook that described the process that they used in excrutiating detail.  I codified that process and produced the integration.  Done deal….

Except it didn’t work.  After lengthy discussions and discovery, we determined that the detailed process never worked.  In their paper environment, manufacturing engineers would manually fill out the information and feed it to a clerk.  The clerk would then change the information and re-key it into the scheduling system.  The missing piece was the logic in the clerk’s head that described what the data really  meant and how the system should see it.

I’ve heard story after story in a similar vein.  There’s always an exception, always a unique case.  Computers are only as smart as the program they’re running.  People can analyze, synthesize, make exceptions, break the rules, to get the job done…  and they will

The moral of the story.  It’s not the technical connection of data you need to work on.  It’s the people side of the process….

- RTR

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Quality Management Software – A Victim of Culture?

16 Jan

I’m looking forward to what Matt Littlefield (LNS) will be writing about Quality Management Software.  This is an area that, in some ways, appears to be a victim of its own culture.

Let’s go back to the days of stone tablets (‘scuse me) paper-based processes in manufacturing.  Like last week, for example.  The quality department and quality processes were always adjunct to actual production.   Design engineers would design a product and would work with quality engineering to define those critical characteristics that need to be tracked through manufacturing.  Let’s say this is an aircraft part/assembly that is being built for a larger OEM, or, for that matter, built by a supplier.  Throughout this supply chain, there is the need to produce a ‘first article’ (for quality), with a corresponding AS9102 filing to document this first article.  Inspectors work with the shop to insure that all of this first article data is collected (on paper) and forms are filled out to comply with the OEM/customers process.

Once in full production, the quality organization is then tasked with providing inspection resources to insure that part/product quality is maintained.  If there is a question on the floor?  Call an inspector.

I visited a consumer products company, a big ERP user, to meet with their quality organization.  They were looking for a paperless system.  I was a bit puzzled, as the products they made were made by highly automated systems.  When we sat down in the quality office, the reason was clear.  We were surrounded by Iron Mountain storage boxes full of data collection sheets.  In this highly automated plant, there were requirements to collect quality data, on an hourly basis, on paper forms.  These forms were then reviewed by a quality person, and an OK was given to ship product.  This OK (or rejection) coming days after the product was completed (the product was stored in a warehouse, awaiting quality approval).  Even in this highly automated plant, quality was separate.

So, how does this make quality management systems a victim of their own culture?  It’s the paradigm.  Quality is something external to the production process.  QMS systems tend to become an electronic version; another system that manages a specific user community.

What if quality was just part of the process?  What if these quality issues and processes just became part of an overall electronic business management environment?  There are MES vendors that have taken this approach, but it shouldn’t start and end there.  When you look at most ERP, PLM and MES solutions, quality is still a separate module, not part of the main business workflow.

Until that happens, Quality Management Software might just become an electronic replacement for “the way we’ve always done things”.

-RTR

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Holy Hasselhoff! KITT? For Real?

13 Jan

Thanks to PTC’s Marilyn Cohodas for this via Twitter.

The New York Times blogger reported from the Consumer Electronics Show about Audi’s “technology blitz”.

The German automaker showed a touch-sensitive version of its heads-up display that projects information onto the passenger’s side of the vehicle, among other next-generation telematics features….

How could I not think of the 1980s and ”Knight Rider”?

…but Marilyn raised an interesting question in her tweet. 

Can car makers bridge the five-year product development gap between automobile and consumer technology?

I believe the answer is an emphatic yes, maybe not an even par, but there will certainly not be a 5 year gap.  Just looking at the paradigm shift in automotive electronics between, say, 2010 and 2012, you can see that the infrastructure is already in place, and that, I believe is the hardest part.

-RTR

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Don’t Say Nothin’ Bad About My MOM…

4 Jan

Sorry for the tongue-in-cheek title.   New year and all… 

I just read another article about MOM; Manufacturing Operations Management.   This particular article was a blog post by Matthew Littlefield (@m_littlefield) of LNS Research.

Maybe I’m too much of a cynic, but really?  Do we need another acronym?  This sounds suspiciously like MRP (and MRP II) becoming ERP..  Or, for that matter, PDM becoming PLM.. and for those of you that remember the 80′s, CAM becoming CIM…

So now MES becomes MOM.   What does this mean, in real terms?

In 1998, I attended a celebration for the production launch of a multi-vendor paperless manufacturing system that CIMx was a part of at an A&D company in Southern California.  One of the invited guests, Dan Miklovic  (at the time with Gartner Group), said in conversation (and I’m paraphrasing)  ”saying you’re in MES is just a way of telling people what you’re not”.

Dan was on to something.  At the time, we were partnered with a number of software firms, and, depending on what their area of expertise was, they each had a different definition of “MES’.  ERP firms tended to think of MES as process control,  managing intelligent hardware,  machine controls, pumps, etc.   PLM vendors had more of a part/BOM centric view of  MES, paperless delivery of information to the manufacturing floor.

The confusion is further magnified by differences in nomenclature among the various industy verticals.  In aerospace, a ‘process plan’ is a discrete set of operational instructions for performing the work necessary to build a part/product.  In automotive a ‘process plan’ is typically the definition of  how an assembly line is set up.

So, it was with some amusement that I read the opening paragraph from the blog post:

There are many different definitions floating around the industry for Manufacturing Operations Management. This is an area that we will be conducting multiple research projects in for 2012, so we thought it would be worthwhile to start the year off by defining what we mean when we write about Manufacturing Operations Management.

The more things change, the more they stay the same…

- RTR

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Why is Easy so Difficult?

13 Dec

I was relating to a quote from Oleg Shivolitsky’s blog about streamling PLM to an old friend of mine, who happens to be employed by Oracle Corporation.  The quote was:

After observing this industry for quite some time, I started to come to conclusion that solutions are becoming more complicated without becoming more functional.

While I took this as an indictment of the software industry in general, and PLM software vendors in particular, my friend had an equally compelling example.  To paraphrase, he said “I can’t get into a rental car and drive away.  It takes thought and study to find the headlights, the heater, etc.”  I spoke to others with the same complaint.  You used to be able to just slide that heater control from blue to red, now you have to manage ‘climate control’.

I drove from Salt Lake City Airport to Ogden last week with the seat warmer on, getting more and more uncomfortable, unable to find the control to shut the darn thing off.  I am SURE that the car dealers rave about all of these new features and functions, music synch, heated seats, climate controls, I just want to be able to get in and drive!

Even mighty Apple tripped me up with their ‘Easy’ iPad.   My wife received an iPad from her employer the day before she was to leave on a vacation trip to Italy with her sisters.  She handed me the iPad with no documentation and asked, “can you set this up for me”?

I pressed the ‘button’ and the screen displayed a picture of a USB cable and the iTunes logo.  That’s it.  I guess that could be described as ‘Easy’, but somehow, one would have to know that the two pictures meant “Plug this USB cable into your iPad and into another computer that has iTunes on it… (OK, if I had documentation maybe I would have known that, but, you get the point).

We software vendors provide our best-of-breed, state-of-the-art, insanely configurable solutions and wonder why, when push comes to shove, the end user will pop open a spreadsheet…  Because it’s EASY

‘Complicated’ does not translate well to ’functional’.  Easy and functional?  That’s more like it.  

So, why is easy so difficult? 

- RTR

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