Problems with PLM
Some PLM software can take from three to nine months to work properly in an organisation.
PTC's PLM express suite (for organisations with under US$1bn in sales) takes three months to set up while the company's more comprehensive PLM range (for firms with sales over US$10bn) can take nine months to implement, Mitford says.
It can cost a large apparel company EUR1-2m to integrate PLM while a small or medium-sized company may pay EUR300,000, observers say.
Apart from limited connectivity with other software, PLM's calendar and workflow functions are "much more challenging" to introduce in a business than it is often perceived, Butler claims.
Other challenges stem from difficulties to train a company's designers and management to use PLM software.
"Consider the target? Creative designers who often shy away from any use of technology in the creative process," Butler points out. "The change management required in PLM adoption is wildly underestimated."
To achieve this crucial step, a company's workforce must be motivated to use PLM. "The end-user community has to be fully committed to the investment," says another industry executive. "Some employees may not like the initiatives and changes required but companies can tie compensation bonuses to the success of the initiative to expedite the process."
PLM systems do not ultimately match the business case for which they were hired so ensuring tracking and adherence to the business case which originally justified the system is imperative, Butler stresses.
PLM's capacity to link with other, multiple-branded applications must also improve to avoid locking a company into a single vendor, observers say.
"It is necessary to have a very open foundation so that data is easily passed from one system to another," Poulton says, adding that some vendors' unwillingness to design open systems to communicate with rival applications lock companies into one supplier.
"There are no vendors who are best at all applications," he says. "It is our goal to allow the import and use of any data from any system and the export and use to any system that a customer may have or be planning to buy."
Like any emerging technology the future - or survival - of PLM software hinges on innovation.
While acknowledging that the market will grow strongly, observers expect current PLM applications to morph into more robust and integrated solutions - or face checkmate.
"PLM will likely merge with sourcing tools and possibly planning technology and ERPs to have a much more blended/mixed market share," Butler predicts. "PLM as it stands today probably only has three to five years as it's selling to Tier-1 companies."
Apart from 3-D visualisation technologies (which Butler says will remain a niche for intimates and footwear), observers see PLM applications moving into handheld devices.
"Connectivity is the key to all future PLM development and innovation," says Poulton. "Any current or future PLM system has to be a true web browser-based application written in such a way as to be 100% usable on handheld devices."
