My previous world (PLM) and new world (eProcurement) collided in a blog by my friend Oleg Shilovitsky; “New Definition of PLM from UK Datamation Info Assets”.
There has been a significant amount of ‘virtual ink’ spent discussing “exactly what is PLM?” It’s provided me with a lot of blogging material over the months….
This new ‘definition’ in Oleg’s blog I found to be intriguing:
PLM is different from say CAD, ERP, CRM, etc. and therefore investment decisions in it should be based on different criteria. PLM’s key role, as defined in the Datamation PLM Model report, is the effective management of information assets through-life. In other words, it is a “live entity”
There you have it. PLM is typically sold based on what it does for you now (vaulting… security… design process management). Not all that different from an eProcurement system (catalog management, purchasing, contracting). The key value through life is not that it can handle these day to day tasks. The key value is based on the fact that it builds an endless repository of all of those transactions.
In the PLM world, this data could be used to create design best practices, or it could be used for intelligent trouble shooting of design flaws.
In the eProcurement world, this data powers Purchase Decision Optimization (PDO). PDO means that each and every purchase can be optimized, based on previous buyer experience, supplier performance, trends, etc.; the kind of social marketplace that has become 2nd nature in the consumer world, but is still rare in business to business transactions.
So, whether it’s design data in a PLM system, or purchasing data in an eProc system, it’s not how you get the data, it’s what you do with it once you have it that counts. Learn more about PDO here.
– RTR
Real Time Rick 
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