Progress: Methodical or Disruptive?
I was reading an article by Randall Newton, a rather professorish-looking fellow who once made a jab at an upstart CAD user/blogger by depicting the blogger reaching into the world of legitimate writing as an ape touching the finger of God. Everything evolves.
The article was about some of the differences between the approach of Siemens PLM and some of its competitors, in terms of development planning and growth. Siemens prefers a more methodical approach that integrates great ideas like Synchronous Technology over time, where some of the competitors want to turn the market on its ear, redefine terms or move into adjacent, but decreasingly relevant markets.
As someone who has been observing some of these changes from up close for the past several years, I can say that I prefer a method that I can grow with. Just uprooting your process from time to time may have some advantages, but that’s something I will want to do on my schedule, not on someone elses. My tools should be dependable and reliable. Retraining .
The idea of “disruption” as a good thing comes mainly from the consumer goods market, and I don’t think the idea transfers very well to industrial tools. It’s tempting to see software as just software, but there is a grand divide between software for private citizens and software for professional organizations. One of the differences is of course how you handle change.
[pullquote]Synchronous Technology (ST), an approach to mechanical CAD software allowing the two separate disciplines of parametric, constraint-driven design (history) and direct modeling (history-free) to work side by side. The technology was introduced first in Solid Edge[/pullquote]
To me, the predictable way in which Siemens PLM has handled change in most of their products is better for businesses that have to make their own plans for the future. “Evolution over Revolution”. So in the same way that the CAD user/blogger mentioned above (me, if you haven’t guessed it by now)has evolved, so it is more natural to allow your tools to evolve as you keep pace with them.
[pullquote]The integration of ST into a history-based 3D modeler has been a methodical process; Siemens PLM has stated over and over how they are not interested in disrupting workflows for the sake of introducing new technology
– GraphicSpeak Blog[/pullquote]
Everybody like to talk about disruptive progress as it is exciting and new, but no one wants to try and incorporate it into a running critical process such as corporate product development and documentation. Mechanical 3D CAD systems are much more complicated than a music app and thus a disruption in CAD is much harder to digest and it actually costs a company real money while productivity takes a hit due to that disruption. Reminds me of an example a few years back where there was a desire to replace AutoCAD with another 2D application due to savings in licensing and maintenance costs… Due to the commoditization of 2D, everyone was using it, and those folks ‘knew’ AutoCAD. Even with free software and the limited command set of 2D (in comparison of 3D), the impact of retraining and temporary loss of productivity was excessive in the corporate environment, easily exceeding $100,000. Needless to say, AutoCAD is still in use.
Now using that same example but in relation to 3D CAD, I could see a similar disruption costing well over $1,000,000. This is why it is so important to do your research and pick a robust CAD system from a vendor that is in it for the long haul and is truly a partner with their customers. In my opinion Siemens PLM has those tools and has been that vendor. I’ve experienced other vendors products and ‘partnership’ in the engineering software space and Siemens PLM clearly stands above them in both respects…