Thanks to the maturity of the market PLM is expanding outside of its’ traditional industries such as aviation and machinery. Over the last year Technia has seen the offshore market emerge as one of the upcoming industries with an increasing interest in PLM.
The offshore industry faces the same problem as many other industries. They strive to gain control as well as make product information accessible and easy to distribute. Product development within the offshore industry was previously handled internally by key persons with a bird’s eye perspective. Today the process has become much more complex, diverse and global. Strict demands on traceability as well after market and service have also become increasingly important to the offshore industry. Tore Brathaug has been with Technia for 8 years and is today head of Technia’s Norwegian office.
- We’re seeing a different process today. In many cases there are more partners, situated on different continents, as well as more sub-suppliers. This makes it a necessity to have an IT-system that can secure that all parties involved are able to access and work with the same information, says Tore Brathaug
Schlumberger, which is a customer of Technia’s, has been using PLM for several years. Initially the company had two problems to solve; they wanted everyone to have access to the same information no matter were they were, and they wanted to coordinate the development process to make sure all personnel worldwide used the same work processes. Today they have succeeded.
- One of the biggest effects from the PLM-implementations was that we optimised the change processes and made it twice as fast. That also means that the transmission of data from development to operation goes 10 times faster than before. What they used to do in six months, they can now do in 10 days, explains Tore Brathaug.
Small and medium sized enterprises – an emerging market
Some of the larger players in the offshore industry have been using PLM for years now. For many of them it has been a prerequisite to be able to act globally. When it comes to the small and medium sized businesses only a few have implemented PLM, however it is an area in which Technia expects strong growth for 2007.
- PLM used to be reserved for big organisations with large wallets and a plenty of time to spend. This has changed over the last couple of years. The system has become less expensive and easier to implement and use which in turn has made small and medium sized companies more interested in PLM. At this stage many SMEs have yet to implement PLM systems although some of the most innovative and offensive companies are already there, says Tore Brathaug.