Resistance to change
Implementing a new PLM solution comes with its own set of challenges and rewards; however, selling PLM to the company can get personal—there are many reasons why employees, teams, or companies are resistant to change.
Responding to change through clear communication, comprehensive training, and involving team members in the implementation process can help mitigate resistance and ensure a smoother transition to PLM.
A few general reasons for resistance to change include:
- Familiarity vs. uncertainty: It’s perceived as easier to work with familiar systems and processes, rather than going into unknown territory like a PLM solution.
- Lack of understanding: PLM can get abstract. If people do not understand why change is needed or see how it can benefit their job, they may not be open to adopting a PLM system.
- Cost and effect: A collective understanding of the trade-offs between the current system and the new one needs to be established.
- Misaligned expectations: Teams needs to understand the role of PLM so there are no conflicting expectations from other parts of the company or resistance to use the new solution. Lack of communication can lead to conflicting expectations and resistance.
- Training and support: Without adequate training and ongoing support, users can feel overwhelmed or frustrated.
Cost and complexity of traditional on-premises or hosted solutions
The cost of PLM can vary, ranging from less than $10,000, to several thousand, and up to millions of dollars depending on different variables such as the number of users, technology platform (on-premises, hosted, or cloud-native), consulting requirements, and any customizations. Traditional on-premises PLM solutions introduce additional IT costs, and overhead can be complex to implement and integrate with existing systems and may require significant time and effort to fully utilize all features.
Data migration issues
Migrating data and information can also be a source of resistance to change, especially as implementing a new PLM solution often involves migration challenges.
Some common issues include:
- Data compatibility: Ensuring that data formats and structures from the old system are compatible with the new PLM system can be complex. Incompatibilities can lead to data loss or corruption.
- Data integrity: Maintaining the accuracy and consistency of data during migration is critical. Issues like naming conflicts, duplicate records, and incomplete data can arise, affecting the integrity of the migrated data and information.
- Legacy data: Deciding what legacy data to keep, toss, archive, or remain accessible for compliance or historical analysis can pose a challenge.
- Integrations with existing systems: Integrating the new PLM solution with other enterprise solutions like ERP or CRM can be complex and may require additional customization.
Ongoing maintenance and support
Ongoing maintenance and support for PLM solutions can present several challenges. Addressing these issues effectively requires a proactive approach, including regular system audits, user feedback, and a dedicated support team to handle any problems that arise.
Common maintenance issues include:
- System updates and upgrades: Keeping the PLM solution current with the latest software versions and patches is crucial for security and functionality.
- Data management: Ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and security of information across the PLM solution is a continuous task. Poor data management can lead to errors, inefficiencies, and compliance issues.
- User training and adoption: As PLM systems evolve, ongoing training is necessary to ensure that all users are proficient with the new features and functionalities.
- Integration with other systems: There are many advantages to integrating a PLM solution with upstream and downstream systems. Ensuring seamless integration and data flow between these systems can require continuous monitoring.
- Customization and configuration: Many organizations customize their PLM systems to meet specific needs. Maintaining customizations and ensuring they work with new updates can be challenging and resource intensive.
- Performance and scalability: As the volume of information and number of users grow, maintaining system performance and scalability becomes critical. This requires regular performance tuning and infrastructure upgrades.
- Compliance and security: Ensuring the PLM solution complies with industry regulations and standards is an ongoing task, and protecting sensitive data and information from cyber threats requires continuous monitoring and updating security measures.
Scalability concerns
Scalable PLM solutions enable companies to adapt product development processes and data management to changing market conditions, expand product lines, or enter new markets, achieving rapid growth without major disruptions or significant infrastructure overhauls. It’s important that a PLM system is scalable and can grow with an organization.
Some scalability challenges:
- Data volume and complexity: As companies grow, the volume of data and information managed by PLM increases. Handling large datasets efficiently without compromising performance can be challenging.
- System performance: Ensuring the PLM system maintains high performance as the number of users and the amount of information grows is crucial. Poor system performance can lead to delays and inefficiencies.
- Cost management: Scaling a PLM solution can be expensive, especially when considering the costs of additional licenses, infrastructure, and ongoing maintenance.
Cloud-native PLM helps overcome challenges
Cloud-native PLM has significantly impacted the market by enabling time to value, improved collaboration across global teams, streamlined processes, and reduced costs through cost reductions associated with low to no IT investments and overhead. PLM enables companies to quickly adapt to changing market needs and innovate more efficiently.
A cloud-native solution offers several advantages that help overcome common challenges in PLM systems:
- Lower total cost of ownership: Cloud-native solutions eliminate the need for significant upfront investments in hardware and infrastructure. Operating on a pay as you go model enables companies to scale resources based on demand resulting in cost savings.
- Reduced IT overhead: By utilizing a cloud-native solution, companies can off-load maintenance, updates, and security management to their PLM solution provider. Plus, IT teams are freed up to focus on more strategic initiatives.
- Faster time to value: Cloud-native solutions are designed with user-friendliness in mind such as intuitive interfaces and comprehensive support which makes them easier to implement and use, speeding time to value (TTV) compared to traditional on-premises solutions.
- Scalable: Cloud-native solutions are typically scalable. They can handle increased workloads and data volumes without significant changes to the infrastructure. Having the ability to scale ensures the system can grow with the company’s needs.
- Simplified integrations: Cloud-native solutions provide robust application programming interface (APIs) and integration tools that make it easier to connect with other enterprise systems like ERP, CRM, and MES. Having this kind of integration capability ensures seamless operations across different platforms.
