I’m excited to welcome our new partner, Cristina Jimenez, to Share PLM!  Cristina was Beatriz’s and my former coworker and part of our “PLM dream team” at the former Outotec (now Metso Outotec), where she led the plant’s PLM solution development.  I first met Cristina in Frankfurt, Germany, seven years ago. Beatriz sold her on the idea of moving to Frankfurt for an internship on my team, and she joined us as an implementation manager. Since we started Share PLM 4 years ago, we’ve tried many times to get Cristina on board.  Although Cristina has entrepreneurial blood – her m ..read more

Challenges So you’ve invested time and money into implementing PLM in your company with the hopes of getting a return on your investment through better and more efficient processes. That’s great! However, processes are only as good as the knowledge of the people using them, right? That’s where a PLM knowledge base comes in. When introducing and sustaining PLM, there’s a lot of new information for employees to retain. And even once you have a well-oiled machine up and running, how will you onboard new employees so they can easily navigate your systems? If users are continually contacting tho ..read more

Another crazy year is (almost) in the books. As I write this, there are 37 hours left in 2021.  In 2021, the pandemic dominated our lives, as people adapted to remote working and social distancing amidst the disruption and uncertainty that COVID continues to bring. It’s safe to say that 2021 is one of the biggest years of change we’ve ever had at Share PLM. In this blog post, I’d like to share with you the ups and downs we experienced in 2021. The latest insights, ideas and perspectives from Share PLM. The challenge: when education went digital overnight When Bea and I started Shar ..read more

Computer and warm coffee at hand, it was the end of the year 2020 and I was at home when a LinkedIn message hit my inbox. It was from John Stark. If you are a PLM or product-related expert, you definitely know him. His new book was out: Products 2019. “Could you please read it, Bea, and see if we can collaborate?” After reading his previous books, I knew that besides being full of wisdom, they are very theoretical.   I needed to book a time to sit down at my desk to concentrate on reading.  What stress! Helena, my business partner and friend, was on maternity leave. We were in lo ..read more

Build a Sustainable and Scalable Digital Learning Strategy in 5 Steps Gartner recently forecasted a record-breaking increase in worldwide IT spending that may reach $4.5 trillion in 2023. With the rise of technology and the need for continuous learning, companies must stay ahead to ensure their people can cope with the changes in their work that technology demands.    When organizations don’t value learning, people get frustrated and quit. For example, 93% of employees claim they would stay with a company longer if it invests in their learning, according to LinkedIn ..read more

Sarah had just taken on the role of Director of Product Lifecycle Management at Nexa. She was bright, a bit shy – and man, was she passionate about PLM! Sarah had worked as an implementation manager for the last three years, helping Nexa roll out their new PLM system.  During this time, she had gained deep architecture and system knowledge. She could draw Nexa’s data model in less than 5 minutes and was the go-to person whenever anyone had a question about systems, processes, or integrations. Sarah was excited by the thought of what Product Lifecycle Management could do for the peopl ..read more

Have you ever gotten an email full of feature releases that you don’t understand? Tired of dry and boring communications flooding your corporate inbox? Feel like you need to connect better with your team? All too often, the default communication for the PLM department is a laundry list of technical jargon and system facts that users don’t get. However, working together with your team on an engaging communication strategy will restore your team’s enthusiasm and commitment. In this blog post, we’ll share some easy ways to spice up your PLM communications and get one step closer to users ..read more

How do you rally your organization around changes after you’ve already sold them on your original Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) plan? It starts with the right communication strategy! Why do you need a PLM communication strategy? Without a strong internal framework for connecting senior leaders with those who execute the transformational goals, there’s little chance that a company can work together to succeed at PLM. What is a PLM communication strategy? When a significant change in PLM has been made in an organization, there needs to be clear communication between everyone invo ..read more

Do processes lead system implementation, or do new systems lead process development? That’s the PLM dilemma, just like the classic chicken-and-egg paradox: “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?” Here are a few examples to get a better understanding of this: If you don’t have your product development process documented, you won’t be able to implement it in your PLM system. And if your system doesn’t support your product development process, users won’t use the system to define their products digitally. If you don’t have an enterprise standard format for your bill of materials repor ..read more

Endless options. Conflicting priorities. Tight budgets. For many companies, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software selection process can feel like an enormous, daunting task. Since leading PLM softwares are inching closer as their system capabilities expand and mature, it’s easy to get caught up in the bells and whistles of the software. Furthermore, smaller cloud PLM systems are now also in the game – and playing with great cards. To start you off in the right direction, here’s a no-nonsense guide to choosing a PLM system. PLM Software Selection: Common Reasons for PLM Evaluation ..read more