PLM software does not immediately come to mind when we think of the cloud, or Software as a Service (SaaS) in general for that matter. This is mostly because PLM software is a niche and there are only a couple of competitors who drive the market. These companies include Siemens PLM (German owned), Dassault Systemes (French owned), and Parametric Technology Corporation (U.S. owned). SAP and Oracle are also (small) competitors, however they lack the focused expertise in PLM of the three companies previously mentioned. Right now, all the big players in PLM software only support local server-client based products.
Currently, a review process typically works like this:
- A review board member is notified by an email that a document is awaiting his or her review and sign-off.
- The user signs into the PLM software, clicks on the document, reviews it, and signs off.
While this does not seem like a lot of work, consider that the user may be in the middle of other work with other software applications open. Not to mention that PLM software today is not very intuitive (especially for the occasional user). This creates a negative impact on productivity.
A cloud based PLM application could be interfaced with internal social networking services, such as the open sourced Eureka Streams social networking application which was recently developed and implemented by Lockheed Martin (Eureka Streams is basically Facebook on steroids and specialized for internal corporate social networking). If PLM were integrated with such a social networking app, users would be able to comment, review, and sign-off on engineering changes from within a familiar micro-blogging environment (today's younger user typically has their favorite social networking app already open and tend to be more responsive in that environment than in responding to email). This would streamline the time it takes a business item to go through a lifecycle since it would eliminate the need to sign into yet another user interface. A direct hyperlink to the reviewed document and the ability to sign-off right from the micro-blogging post are just two possible features of such a social networking integration with PLM. Of course, a separate UI would still be needed for Bill-of-Materials (BOM) management and the creation of business items, but those are usually activities performed by only a few PLM power users. The majority of users are typically review board members who only need to review and sign-off on technical documents.
One question still remains: Do we build a link to existing social networking apps (such as Eureka Streams) or build social networking functionality into the existing PLM product?
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