Product Lifecycle Management (PLM): Critical Issues and Challenges in Implementation - Information Technology and Product Development - page 98

customize the application. The leading vendors are quick to remind potential buyers
how difficult and expensive it will be to redeploy a “vanilla” solution in order to re-
enable the application upgrade path and re-engage the support contract. However,
the PLM technology is not quite there just yet.
Although all implementation teams surely manage against needless customiza-
tions, in the end they all have made software customizations in order to address
some unique user requirements. PLM solutions are simply not configurable enough
or functionally capable of addressing the broad base of product development prac-
tices employed by companies across varied product markets. This reality has really
caught internal IT leaders by surprise. By now, most IT departments have policies
against any kind of customization made to a purchased application. Such a policy
can be very challenging when implementing a PLM application especially when
some companies define a customization as broadly as a simple change to an existing
database call.
5.4.3.1 Customizations: The New Best Practice
The question is: will the necessity of customization be an on-going characterization
of PLM implementations or are customizations a necessary evil when automating
the product development process? There are at least two different camps with two
different answers to this issue.
Obviously, the software vendor's point of view is that the need to customize the
software is simply a technology maturity factor. As more and more software releases
are launched, the quality and accuracy of the PLM technology will greatly reduce -
if not completely eliminate - the need to develop software customizations. Given
that ERP vendors are acquiring and/or releasing their own PLM applications this
point of view is easy to believe. However, some people believe that product devel-
opment - the essence of the process that makes some companies more successful
than their competitors - is a function that cannot be commoditized. The belief is that
the development practices are differentiating and therefore a third party PLM appli-
cation cannot generically model the process enough to eliminate all customizations.
Regardless of which camp you align with, only time will tell which line of thinking
is correct.
5.4.3.2 Wanted: PLM Experienced Implementers
When looking at the technical landscape of a PLM project (e.g., best of breed
application suite, complexity, and functional customizations) one can surmise that
locating experienced resources that match a typical project scope is difficult. Even
PLM technical consultants tend to have a narrow, targeted area of experience
(e.g., change management and portfolio management) and little experience - even
familiarity - with other functional areas. Throw in the project team's need to
develop customizations in order to meet the scope of the user requirements and
it becomes apparent how this implementation challenge quickly becomes a major
project risk.