Decisions, decisions. The first decision I had to make this morning was whether to write this post in response to something Oleg posted<\/A> earlier today, which was already in response to something Jim had written<\/A> a few weeks ago. As you can see, I decided in the affirmative. To be honest, it was an easy decision even though I\u2019ve been on a leave of absence from the Siemens PLM Blog for a while (just some other things getting my attention for the last few months). If you liked what I had to say and am glad I\u2019m back, then thank Oleg \u2013 if not, then you know who to blame. Decisions, decisions. The first decision I had to make this morning was whether to write this post in response to something Oleg posted earlier today, which was already in response to something…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61670,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61670"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1583,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1582\/revisions\/1583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=1582"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
This discussion all started a few weeks ago, when Jim posted about some research he had completed on \u201cImproving Engineering Decision-making with PLM\u201d. One of the findings he shares from the report is that making good decisions early in the product development process is even more important as product complexity increases. Oleg picks up on Jim\u2019s themes of decision making and complexity, concluding that PLM is too complicated to support decision making. It\u2019s not that decision making won\u2019t happen \u2013 it has to happen if product is going to ship. \u201cIt just won\u2019t happen here\u2026in PLM system\u201d.
The basis of Oleg\u2019s conclusion is that there are two important elements of a decision making framework: information collection and decision tracking. I think he\u2019s exactly right since those are some of the same things we\u2019ve been building as part of our HD-PLM decision-making environment.Our HD-PLM technology is based on three key elements: intelligently integrated information, future proof architecture and a high-definition user experience. As Oleg points out, getting all of the information together to make decisions is hard, but the whole point of intelligently integrated information is to make it easier by making sure that information is connected in context, so that un-related connections don\u2019t muddle the decision making process. Decision tracking fits in the intelligently integrated information pillar of HD PLM as well. In the simplest view, decisions are \u201cjust\u201d another bit of data that needs to be stored, accessed, shared and potentially re-used (no one wants to have to make the same decision twice). Intelligently integrated information allows decisions to be tracked and best practices to be shared.
This wouldn\u2019t be a very interesting post if I simply agreed with Oleg (and Jim). And a non-interesting post wouldn\u2019t have pulled me out of blogging retirement. Where I think Oleg is getting it wrong is on this issue of complexity. In Jim\u2019s original post he is describing the products PLM users are making with PLM software as complex. Oleg goes on to attribute that same complexity to PLM products themselves. It doesn\u2019t have to be this way. Just because an underlying product or process to produce it is complex, does not mean that all that complexity needs to be presented to the user in order for them to get their job done.
I can\u2019t help but think of a parallel from the consumer world, what with one of my browser tabs pointed at the Engadget liveblog<\/A> of the Apple iPad Mini announcement today while I write this post. I think most would agree that one of the reasons Apple has moved from the basement to the penthouse, at least in terms of stock valuation, is the iTunes store. If you have never purchased something from the store, let me describe it: login or create an account, search for what you want or have Apple recommend some songs (or movies, or TV shows) to you, click buy and watch. It really couldn\u2019t be an easier user experience, yet what\u2019s going on in the background couldn\u2019t be more complex. Apple has negotiated contracts with content providers, created digital versions of their content, indexed it in a catalog, curated a set of recommendations, distributed the file to its global content network, delivered it to you when you clicked on it, debited your account and paid the content provider their share. And that\u2019s probably only half of it. That\u2019s a pretty complicated process, but at the same time a pretty streamlined and efficient user experience. That\u2019s what the HD user experience component of HD-PLM does for PLM. It manages the complexity that is necessary to imagine and create the product that will be competitive in today\u2019s market, without exposing it to the user. Our CTO, Paul Sicking, gave a good example of this recently:
<\/P>\u201cThink about a situation where you\u2019re working on a piping system in a ship. You might know what room the system is in, so you can register for everything that\u2019s within, say, two meters of that particular piping system in that room. In very simple terms, you just describe the kind of information that you\u2019re interested in and then the system can quickly find it and load it into your session. In addition to that, it can continually monitor what is happening around you as other people create more content in that particular room. If that content satisfies the requirements that you subscribe to, then it automatically gets loaded into your session. You get notified of that additional information so you don\u2019t have to manually go out and continually look for design changes. It\u2019ll actually be pushed to you.\u201d<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
Sounds like a pretty straightforward way for the user to get their job done on a pretty complex product (a ship!) without having to be faced with that complexity. In this case, I think that PLM users can have their cake and eat it too.\u201cFools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it.\u201d
– Alan Perlis, first recipient of the Turing Award.<\/BLOCKQUOTE><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"