Need Management Engagement instead of involvement - PLM and EGOISM

As we discussed in last post regarding PLM Implementation processes, we need to understand engagement of management in PLM Implementation in which it goes towards successful PLM Implementation. PLM is continuous change and continuous improvement system in an organization, where there is change there will be uncommon difficulties comes up. For example in an Organization that too in a mechanical industry, people working from long time with their fully adjusted processes and working styles are more focused to work as they work from long time. When PLM comes into picture there will be surely some process developments and working procedure changes happens. And in most of the cases people are definitely not ready to accept the new CHANGES. Here is EGOSIM comes into picture that Technical people (Tech Leads, Senior Engineers, Technical Managers, Engineers) demands and thinks that thier process is fine and PLM should work as per their process and procedure.

Off course Organization's present process and procedure might be perfect and in most cases it should needs to be tuned to give more productive results. In that case senior level management should engage in defining the requirements, processes development and methodologies as per their strategy by considering joint working the Implementation service vendor. Otherwise the whole PLM implementation mgiht go in wrong path and finally it goes huge loss to organizaiton and repetitive work to carry to come back to correct way.

And main focus in this early phase of Implementation is, key technical persons from management team should have proper understanding of their organization strategy in their area (Design Team, Sales team, Production Team etc.) and some amount of PLM domain knowledge will be added advantage. Defining proper AS-IS process and TO BE processes along with proper Technical Scope in carrying out good PLM implementation is foundation for whole PLM project and it is responsibility of both management and service provider to come up with rigors engagament and discussions across cross functional teams.

If it is new domain to establish PLM system, then for both management and service provider complexity increases and important is to understand PLM tool from management team and as well it is more important to understand new domain for PLM Implementation service provider.

In a real case example where I started a PLM implementation for an organization where it was new domain (Plant Design for Energy Industry) in our area and as well new to organization.

Domain knowledge is key factor to carry out any PLM implementation as working processes are entirely different for various industries, as I was from Automotive and Machine Design Background and Plant Design doamin was totally new to me, and the Implementation Project plan was very tight, I would have to complete in tight time plan. And project started with requirements capturing AS-IS Process across cross functional team and later defined Technical Scope, as mentioned before we both were new to domain and after lot of discussions, analysis we started configuring the Testing database for the same. Due to tight schedule, unclear understanding of processes and poor engagement of management, PLM Implementation completed with no use. Even though there was lot efforts and time spent on the project, it was driving in various directions. Finally it was failure of project. As management was telling this was the way we have to go and we service provider stating management was wrong. In between Clients and Vendor lot of miss-communications, Technical EGOSIMS and lack of doamin knowledge, no idea of objective of PLM in Plant Design, and bad project preparations made Implementation went into bad shape.

We will discuss how we over come with this situation and finally how we succeeded in bringing the PLM implementation to succes right path.

Bye for now,

Anil Kumar J R