PI DX 2020 Atlanta – Data Management Strategy

I was invited to speak at the Product Innovation PI DX USA 2022 conference that is taking place earlier today and tomorrow in Atlanta, GA. If you never heard about PI DX, it is an event for Design, Engineering, and R&D Leaders. Started back in 2011 in London by Market Key, the conference is a very unique place to meet PLM professionals and industry leaders. The important characteristic of the conference is that it is “vendor-neutral”, which means that it is not run by any of the PLM vendors, and the agenda is strictly focused on the customer and thought leadership presentations. Check the conference agenda here. 

Data Strategy and Single Source of Truth (SSOT) 

I came to the conference to speak about the topic, which is near and dear to my heart – Single Source of Truth (SSOT) and future data management strategies. I was sharing my technological perspective as well as the experience we captured in the last few years developing the OpenBOM platform. Here is a brief overview of my session: 

The rise of data and the new economy has led to a paradigm shift that is redefining our world. In today’s digital age, information reigns supreme as currency for businesses looking towards an accelerated productivity level with advanced technologies in place; this will allow you to be more competitive by boosting efficiency across all departments at once!

The most common data challenges faced by businesses are talked about in detail during this session. You will learn how to overcome them and get practical tips that can help your company succeed. 

You will gain new insights into the following topics:

• Avoiding breakdowns in information flows throughout the organization
• Optimization processes and connecting data silos  
• Making the technology work for your data flow
• Giving people the right tools to communicate and collaborate
• Designing effective education of your users to support data sharing across the business

Slide Deck 

My slide deck from the conference is available here. It covers the historical perspective on PLM development, technological options, and existing architectures. I speak about innovative technological solutions and enablement such as 

• Mulit-tenant architecture
• Polyglot Persistence 
• IaaS and PaaS Platforms
• Data services 

Here is my slide deck.

Summary of my comments 

In the following slide, the most fundamental differences between existing single-tenant hosted PLM solutions and the new OpenBOM multi-tenant network-based platform. 

Here are some of my concluding remarks from the presentation. 

• The single PLM dream is over. Traditional PLM architectures are built around SQL databases that are limited, siloed, and cannot be used efficiently in a modern manufacturing environment. 
• SaaS platforms and data services are a way to focus on information flow and data handover in the organization. It is about data and not a database.
• There is a need to break through company boundaries. Modern multi-tenant architectures provide a network layer to connect people across multiple organizations. 
• Companies increasingly looking at how to use IaaS and PaaS platforms as a foundation for their solutions.
• Multi-tenant SaaS solutions is a platform for SMEs.
• PLM services are the way to integrate SaaS solutions for enterprise.
• Education is extremely important to support digital transformation. 

Conclusion

The next 5-10 years will play a pivotal role in the formulation of new PLM architecture – multi-tenant platforms and network-based solutions. The fundamental element of these platforms is a network layer that makes it possible for everyone who runs on OpenBOM to get their chunk of information instantly shared across multiple organizations’ boundaries. 

Want to check out how OpenBOM can help? REGISTER FOR FREE and start a 14-day trial instantly. OpenBOM prices are available online here.

Best, Oleg