Monday, January 29, 2018

Product Development , Production & Sales Strategies to adopt in PLM and ERP

MTS-Make To Stock Planning: standard product made to a forecast before any committed orders come in
MTO -Make To Order Production : standard products not held in inventory and made after a committed order comes in
ATO- Assemble To Order or Finish To Order with placement of the Inventory/Order interface: standard product where some components are held in stock and the finished product is finished after the order comes in
CTO- Configure To Order: The standard product has variations; as many as not to justify the creation of a part number for every variation but not as many as to make the underlying structure too complex to handle
ETO- Engineer To Order: complex structures and customer specified projects which were never built before and make it impossible to be handled with standard variations

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

AGILE Process Project in PLM Implementation or in any Software Development Project!

An Agile Process is guided by scenarios (customer portrayal of the requirements in story-board format), acknowledges that plans are not frozen permanently and can be changed as and when required, builds software on an iteration-basis and delivers the final software over several “software incremental deliveries,” and adjusts to the changes that is bound to happen during the entire duration of the project.
Agile approaches developed in the 1990s as a reaction to document-driven approaches that were sometimes highly bureaucratic. Most agile approaches have some common principles.
  • Working software is used as yardstick for measuring the progress of software development.
  • The final software need to be delivered in multiple increments, with each increment quite small.
  • The planning should be so adaptive that even changes desired during the late stage of the project should also be accommodated.
  • Prefer face-to-face communications as opposed to relying mostly on documentation.
  • Continuous response and continuous customer commitment and enthusiasm are essential for an agile project’s success.
  • Prefer simple design that evolves over time.
  • The software development team is authorised to determine the software delivery dates. This is contrary to traditional methods, where typically a top-management person may decide on the delivery dates and the software development team have to then abide.
  • Thus, we can generalise and say that it is practically impossible to predict in advance from a planning viewpoint all the aspects of analysis, design, construction and testing.
  • You may have realised by now that we are talking of a process that can manage unpredictability! We can achieve this only by being adaptable, and that too incrementally, rather than being firm. Customer feedback is essential in the agile process as also using an operational prototype that will be iteratively developed.
Thanks,
Anil
Reference: 3rd Chapter MBA Software Engineering - subject

Monday, December 19, 2016

Program, Product Portfolio Management in PLM & nPD

In one of my recent interaction with an OEM, I have been asked many questions over Program, Product Portfolio Management area, and I discussed and done well with questions. After many rounds of deep discussions with OEM senior members, I got the clear view with PPM domain and I am able to fix   and I can accommodate PPM domain exactly with PLM layer. 

In my last two assignments I got to work rigorously with Project Management area to establish tight integration system across cross functional teams by using PLM Project Management Platform. SOW is clearly said to collaborate new product development (nPD) processes along with various product ranges of the client. 

Developing a New Product in a controlled system for minimum or few product ranges is quiet lesser complex compared many product line portfolios. An organization with many such product ranges as per market segments have more projects and teams to development and deliver to market. 

In the context of R&D focused nPD processes PLM gives an opportunity to establish strong PDM area with Design Data innovation tools (CAD, CAM, FEM, Simulation etc.) to generate and manage IP, Change Management Processes within and across product development groups. This layer of PLM controls, manages the technical processes like APQP, DFMEA, DFA & DFM, ECO, ECR, PSR, Quality Audits, PPAP, Product Costing Processes, RFQ, etc. and one can manage information for many such product ranges with focus to R&D. With the above processes meant for R&D and many cases maximum time technical persons are involved to deliver products as per their plan.

Presently the globalization trend pushing every organization to deliver product on time to market with quality, innovative, attractive and economical parameters in mind. So organizations' executives look the product development and R&D as main business strategically units to look over the each and every projects and processes to control the system to meet the globalization challenges. 

So here is the solution PPM (Product Program Portfolio Management). PPM manages and controls the information and processes flow in business strategically way and gives the scope of executing Projects for small to big, market to segments product ranges development projects. 

PPM controls the individual projects, multiple projects under one  market segments or many market segment & as per industries categories. PPM is total end to end Project Management solution, acts as governing processes for many sub processes inside various groups of an organization. 
              Example: R&D looks mainly into Technical info and innovation of product with various processes. Costing group looks for product costing optimization, SCM looks for all suppliers processes, Purchasing looks for material procurement,  marketing looks for VOC, customer feedback, orders and Planning and Production looks for execution of orders, operations, Inventory processes etc.
All the above examples for Cross functional teams should work close and collaboratively to meet business and globalization challenges.
Here PPM comes and integrate all these processes as set of tasks in phased manners for single and multiple projects across organization product ranges. PPM gives clear view of Project Scope and integration areas, total project duration, Resource management, allocation, Quality norms, Project Risks, Financial, budgeting and slighter finance forecasting, communication across cross functional teams & whole project status and Reporting etc. 

In my experience, many organizations not providing much attention and importance in PPM and many group leaders, seniors intentionally  do not wanted to be part of such PPM solutions in their Information Systems (IS) like PLM, ERP, Project Management tools.

Reasons are many more and few are pretty straight and simple that,
One do not want to come under processes controlled system,
Lack of confidence in executing many projects and deliver on time,
One thinks everything under track for every set activities and information will be clear transparency, chance of getting exposed for minor mistakes,
Egoism to work under one controlled system and one administration of project base system, Etc. etc.

I strongly  recommend organizations to adapt PPM solution and use effectively in PLM, ERP or in any of IS system to get good ROI and market grip.

Thanks,
Anil

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

PLM Implementation and server Deployment Plan

v  Deploy and Configure PLM tool in Development Server soon after 1st level requirement collection completed with client
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v  Configure all the requirements Offsite work - do test, Demo, get feedback by clients  and changes, and sign-off
v  Start Deploy the phase1 build in UAT (Test Server)Server and allow user to work & test

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v  Start Phase 2 activities & requirement collection 
v  Configure all the requirements Offsite work - test, Demo, feedback and changes, Trainings and sign-off
v  Start Deploy the phase2 build in UAT Server and allow for user to work

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v  Start Phase 3 activities & requirement collection over
v  Configure all the requirements Offsite work - test, Demo, feedback and changes, Trainings and sign-off
v  Start Deploy the phase3 build in UAT Server and allow for user to work

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v  Start Production Server configuration
v  Deploy all the phase builds in Production Server and one round of test

v  Test, Demo, feedback and small changes, Trainings and sign-off – Handhold support 

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Change Management Process - PLM view

Change Management Process:
The methodology to manage the changes in the product configurations during its lifecycle process
Ensuring:
·       Standard process
·       Controllability, Traceability
·       Completeness
·       Validity
·       Approval
Managing change is critical to controlling product evolution and product configurations
We need changes to fix things & to improve things & for many other reasons as well Configurations management is the framework in which changes
takes place
Changes come from internal as well external sources
Change Management begins at the start of product lifecycle and continuous throughout lifecycle
Changes need to be managed & tracked from start to finish
Key change Concepts:
Encourage change
               Keep changes small and simple to minimize required approvals and time lags
3 steps – change request, change order, change notification
               Consider adding problem report, in the beginning to allow anyone relevant, including customers and suppliers to submit issues
Lead the process with the documentation – What the change is intended to accomplish, why, how, cost

Why Change Management Process?
•             Changes pushed out without proper authorization
•             Not all changes are being followed
•             Starting point not established or not being updated
•             The right people are not involved in the change process
•             Full impact of change unknown first time around
•             Through change evaluation not being done
•             Controllability is weak
•             Change process takes too long
•             Metrics not being tracked or reported
•             Personal working on wrong information

Change process failure:
Change is too tight controlled during WIP
               Data is left vulnerable, outside control of the PDM vault
               People workaround processes

All the changes are traced equally
               Process is delayed due to over complicated
Different level of changes should receive different levels of control and sign off – more complicated or costly – more control

The process is not closed Loop:
               The person who requested needs to know it was resolved
               Other people need to be notified as well

Changes are not always tracked against all of the data they impact, such as labeling, artwork, and packing

               Change is incomplete
Change process is complicated when external partners have to be involved in decision making
               Fail to gain complete understanding of change impact
               Companies do not provide external partners enough access

Determining the cost of a change is often difficult – many times people lack access to cost data
               Changes delayed due to fear of costly mistake
               Changes undertaken without understanding the lifecycle cost

Key control Points;
•             The review and disposition (approval or disapproval) of each enterprise change request (ECR)
•             Planning and implementation of approved ECRs
•             Validation of new and revised information to be released
•             Work authorization allows the use of changed data

Best Practices:

•    Change is managed proactively within the product development environment  Multiple changes are encouraged early in the product lifecycle where they are very inexpensive
Changes are managed so that the true impact of change is always well understood (implies access to product data include cost, inventory)
•     Incomplete but accurate product design data is valuable to supply chain processes
Productive work can be done on product and process definition information that are accurate but not complete
Retaining definition information until the design is complete reduces the enterprise agility (restricted access) 
•      Owners of data are identified as responsible for changes to that data
All product and process definition information has owners who are responsible for understanding the impact of change on the data elements they own
       Owners must understand how their data elements are related to other product definition information
•   Users or owners of the item being changes should approve, not a manager
•   More than 3 or 4 approves are typically not necessary
               Typically,
once key approvers sign off, everyone else follows along anyway
               If people
feel the need to know what is happening, use notifications
•   Product changes must be communicated throughout enterprise and to extend enterprise participants as required
Proposed and approved changes are communicated at the right time, to the right people, where they are located
•    Take holistic approach to change management – allowing you to better understand the impact of change in all forms
               Implement a PLM solution that manages the BOM at its core
               Provide access to external information (eg: cost) via PLM interface
•     View change management as part of comprehensive configuration management activity                        Supporting technologies are not good if they are not used within the proper process environment

PLM for change Management

•             PLM provides one master Bill of information – BOI
A physical information structure with the multiple logical
views such as as-designed, as-planned, as-assembled, as-delivered, as-maintained
•             This master BOI is managed by one system and it feeds product configuration info to all other systems
               It is the system record
•             It is the source for information critical to assessing change impact
•             PLM can proactively warn of problems & delays in change processes
               Provide metric to gauge success
•             PLM workflows control & assure process adherence
               Can support both fast track and normal track versions of workflows
               Streamline change processes and sign offs
•             PLM provides visibility to product process change info so that it can be managed strategically during all the phases of the lifecycles, thereby reducing the total costs of change
•             PLM supports visual collaboration during the product change, with visualization and virtual meeting technology
•             PLM provide tractability
The goal is to achieve end item traceability on all the changes without compromising the rules of interchangeability and to do so cost effectivity
•             PLM integrated with ERP and pother systems to provide access to other data (cost, inventory...)

Concluding Remarks:
  • Embrace & encourage change – changes help make better products
  • Learn about PLM – understand how it can support change processes
  • Understand your change process and business rules when implementing PLM
  • Use PLM workflows to drive consistence change processes
  • Track change problems & other metrics via PLM
Reference:
CIMData session and hands on experience

Thanks,
Anil