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PLM Roadmap and PLM Europe 2017

Last week Koneksys was present at PDT Europe 2017 in Gothenburg in Sweden. The purpose was for me to talk about the Data Web, the OSLC Community, and of course to learn the latest industry trends from PLM experts. The two day event, organized by Eurostep, was preceded by the one day PLM Roadmap organized by CIMData. As summed up on the PLM Roadmap page, it was “3 days of presentations, 2 unique events, 1 ticket”!

The theme for the first day, PLM Roadmap, was ‘Digitalization’. The Gartner definition is “the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value- producing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business”. This trend has been powering industries forward for years, but right now in the PLM industry it is becoming a driving force of disruption as it becomes clear that tools, processes, and ways of thinking need to change. So in this spirit over the three days as a whole, there was discussions about the Digital Twin, Digital Thread, Industry 4.0, and more.

As the first day proceeded, and indeed throughout the PDT event over the next couple of days, it became clear that there were common issues that everyone was trying to solve, whether you are a PLM vendor, systems integrator, or a company trying to manufacture in the most efficient way. For example on standards, while deemed to be imperfect and splintered, there was general consensus that they were the best way to future-proof solutions and increase collaboration. On the topic of the digital thread, many of the presenters were working to solve the issue of maintaining the flow of data through systems and making sure it is linked. This is where we believe the Data Web is key for robust PLM data integration.

Brian King speaking about the Data Web

As part of the ‘Standards for MBSE interoperability and openness’ track, I presented on the Data Web and in particular on Web Standards, OSLC, and specifications for Web-based data interoperability. Follow through this link for the slides.

Data connectivity is at the core of PLM solutions in order to achieve traceability, consistency and integration across product lifecyle data. The case I was making, and one that Koneksys firmly believe in, is that the Web has demonstrated connectivity at the largest scale. As the Web is now increasingly becoming a Web of data, in addition to a Web of documents, it may transform data management solutions such as PLM solutions which were until now unaffected by the disruption caused by the Web.

For more information on what happened, you can explore the #plmroadmap and #pdte17 tags on Twitter, and read the following posts by other attendees: