Time-to-market meets the flattening of the earth

Background…

Traditional product lifecycle curves consist of two discrete phases which drive a company's capital conversion cycle (Investment, ROI, Recoup).

1.Product Development

2.Product Production

Background…

Toward the end of the 20th century, JIT concepts (along with Y2K) drove investment in Enterprise class Production applications such as ERP (physical capital centric), SCM (working capital centric), CRM (customer centric). With the exception of highly engineered product - requiring investment in CAD\CAE\PDM - Product Development has seen relatively little investment of enterprise class applications, despite studies that indicate nearly 85% of a product's cost structure is defined within that phase.

Background…

The Global Economy and "flattening of the earth" has allowed businesses to leverage outsourced business models [primarily manufacturing] here-to-for available only to the largest of enterprises. Many of these businesses have only recently completed investment in ERP systems,even fewer in SCM. Nearly all of them manage Product Development via ad hoc (typically MS Excel ro Access) methods.

"Outsourcing operations for a manufacturing company is like a warm toilet seat in a public restroom. Nice at first, but it becomes increasingly un-nerving the more you think about it"

Surprisingly, most now find themselves "fumbling for an SIC code" having eschewed their traditional value-add. During this soul-searching exercise, the [savvy] soon realizes they have morphed from asset based enterprises into information based enterprises, and in doing so come to find their ad hoc Product Development systems are grossly inadequate.

Key Challenges• Staying on top of new products

– Information accuracy and timeliness – Document control– Management visibility into schedules – Collaboration with remote partners – Duplication of information

Key Trends•Global outsourcing•Higher SKU counts•Rapid change

Concept Design Source Deliver

Business problem…

•Time-to-market

• Launch execution

Symptoms of failure

Information Flow During A Product’s Lifecycle

A lot of the complexity stems from the iterative nature of Product Development versus the more traditional linear paths that Production system are designed to handle.

PLMresearch’s PRODUCTManager is a online repository that helps global companies deal with this complexity.

Participants:• View data• Edit data• Copy data• Receive email change

notifications

PRODUCTManager provides development partners with access to what they need

Everyone is working off the same information

Key Benefits• Reduced confusion• Improved Organization • Better control of information• Faster information sharing• Fewer mistakes

PRODUCTManager

Key Benefits• Faster time to market• Improved control over designs• Lower development Costs

Key Benefits• Up-to-date online catalogs• Better support to sales channel• Lower administration costs

No hardwareNo software

Development data feeds downstream Production systems

• Founded 2000• On-line product merchandising solutions for

mid-sized companies in the home furnishings industry

• Selected clients: Global Views®, John-Richard®, Montaage®, Oriental Accents®, and The Uttermost Company®

About PLMresearch

PLMresearch Opportunities• Established market/need

– $60B home furnishing industry– Highly fragmented– Little IT infrastructure

• Hosted pricing model– Configure engagement– Monthly subscription

• Open Source development – Web-based preserves GPL– PHP leverages existing code

• Phase II development– Standardized (well supported) architecture– Robust PHP community (BostonPHP.org and beyond)

PLMresearch Opportunities (cont.)

• Greenfield– PLM has not been dominated by traditional s/w companies

e.g. ERP/CRM/SCM– Some evangelizing has occurred via big CAD/ERP vendors

• Nose under the tent– PLM setups downstream integration play via RDBMS

accretation– Referral sell into OS CRM, eCommerce, liquidation

• Larger markets available– Lightly engineered, short PLC, high SKU– Non-durables, consumer/commodity-like

PLMresearch pipeline

• Active trial– Progress Lighting division of Hubbell (NSYE:

HUBB)

– CBK division of Blythe (NYSE: BLH)

– Maitland-Smith division of Furniture Brands (NYSE: FBN)

– Department56 (NYSE: DFS)

PLMresearch requirements

• Funding for phase II development– Software engineers

– Integration engineers

– Operations