PLM: Enabling Smarter Decisions And Better Products

These are challenging times for the manufacturing industry in India. With global economic uncertainties, manufacturers are under a lot of pressure to cut costs and increase revenue. The last time Indian manufacturing faced a similar crisis was in the early nineties, after economic liberalisation in India opened up a previously protected market to global competitors. A lot of people back then, including many manufacturers themselves, thought that more efficient foreign manufacturers providing higher quality products would completely wipe out manufacturing in India.

What unfolded over the next twenty years was something very different; Indian manufacturers not only overcame the crisis, but emerged stronger than ever before. They became efficient and high quality manufacturers. The rapid expansion in manufacturing over the last two decades along with several prestigious quality awards bagged by Indian manufacturers bear testament to this fact.

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So, what’s the next step for Indian manufacturing? Before we answer this question, let’s look at some of the challenges manufacturers face today. Let’s start with the need for speed. With shrinking product lifecycles and expanding choices available to consumers, manufacturers have to bring their innovations to the market faster than their competitors to stay in the race. Further, with increasingly complex products, no one manufacturer can possess all the skills and competencies required to bring a product to market. Manufacturers are increasingly forced to work with suppliers and partners across the world providing key sub-systems and competencies.

This brings us to our next challenge, globalisation. Indian manufacturers have to target global markets to achieve economies of scale. They also have to work with global partners who may be providing key competencies that are critical to product success. In this increasingly globalised value chain, one faces the next challenge of optimisation. How can manufacturers get the most out of their resources and competencies that are now spread across the world? How do they achieve this while maintaining flexibility to respond quickly to market demands? And how do they do this while paying close attention to the next major challenge, sustainability. With increasing concern for the environment, governments around the world are enacting regulation to control the use of harmful materials in the product and the production process. Manufacturers are also being made accountable for the safe disposal of their products at the end of life. In summary, manufacturers today face unprecedented challenges and a complex business environment. Just being an efficient manufacturer is no longer sufficient to achieve long term success.

That brings us back to the question: what’s next for Indian manufacturing? The answer lies in the practice of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). PLM is rapidly emerging as a critical enterprise application for manufacturers. While PLM is a vast domain with several solution sets, one could classify them into three broad areas: digital product development, digital lifecycle management, and digital manufacturing.

However, please bear in mind that PLM is, first and foremost, a business strategy. Products are the life blood of any manufacturing organisation, and a disciplined approach to decision making across the product lifecycle can unlock tremendous value for manufacturers. PLM software has evolved over the years, from simple CAD tools, to integrated information systems that contain intelligent product and process information, thus supporting effective decision making across the lifecycle. Smarter decisions would logically lead to better products, providing long term growth and profitability to manufacturers.

When Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) experienced increasing market pressures to introduce new product models in a shorter timeframe, they decided to automate their die design process with the help of digital product development tools. This helped MSIL bring down the die design time and costs, while enhancing the quality of dies.

For Avantha Power & Infrastructure Limited (Avantha Power), it was a question of reducing project delivery and execution time for commissioning new power plants. With the help of a digital lifecycle management system, Avantha Power was able to manage and share accurate project information among employees and vendors in a secure environment, thus achieving their overall project objectives.

When Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Limited (Mahindra Vehicles) decided to setup a new manufacturing plant at Chakan to cater to the rising demand for medium and heavy commercial vehicles, they turned to digital manufacturing technologies to help them plan and simulate the entire plant virtually before they started construction. This helped Mahindra Vehicles bring down vehicle lead times and costs significantly, as well as eliminate non-value adding activities early in the process, thus supporting their “first time right” philosophy.

These examples should not give one the impression that PLM is suited only to large enterprises. Small and mid-sized manufacturers face the same challenges, and are increasingly turning to PLM to help them deal with the complexity of today’s business environment.

In summary, we are on the cusp of what promises to be an exciting period for manufacturing in India. Challenges abound, but so do opportunities. Innovative manufacturers who make smarter decisions and build better products are sure to achieve success in the years to come.

The author is Director Marketing, Siemens PLM Software India.

References:
1. Siemens PLM Software Overview brochure.
2. Siemens HD-PLM Vision whitepaper.
3. Slashing product time-to-market through die design automation – Case study by Maruti Suzuki India Limited.
4. Rapid PLM implementation results in significantly reduced project engineering cycle time and costs for power plant builder/operator – Case study by Avantha Power & Infrastructure Limited.
5. Mahindra rises with digitally planned new vehicle manufacturing facility – Case study by Mahindra Vehicle Manufacturers Limited