Sep 23, 2020
On today’s episode of the
Digital Enterprise Society podcast Thom Singer and Craig Brown are
joined by Aras Technical Account Manager David Ewing and Assistant
Professor of Practice at Purdue University Travis Fuerst to discuss
the importance of teaching students about PLM in the classroom long
before they enter the workplace. David and Travis co-authored the
valuable book Essentials of Product Data Management: Enabling
the Digital Enterprise — a resource for educators that exposes
students to the concepts, capabilities and processes associated
with PDM.
Today they share the importance
of improving PLM and PDM education, critical reasons that the
digital enterprise needs to be digitized, and why there is a
greater need than ever before for a transition from PDM to
PLM.
On today’s podcast, you will
learn:
How can PDM and PLM improve in education and in the
workforce?
- Students need to be better equipped to work
with PDM and PLM straight out of college.
- A PDM
model in the classroom would avoid the need to unteach bad habits
in the workplace.
- Engineering and technology need to be better
merged and released from their silos.
- Senior management needs to be willing to look
at new tools to improve processes.
- System engineering should be engaged from Day 1
until the time a product stops being used.
3 reasons the digital enterprise needs to be
digitized
- PDM
is more than just CAD, which means the author needs to be more
deliberate in how data is stored.
- Travis and David’s book takes digitization down
to the user’s level and answers the question ‘what’s in it for
me?’.
- Academia needs to be better prepared for the
demands of post-school PLM requirements.
The need for a transition from PDM to PLM
- Product lifecycle management still requires
that the process comes first.
- Data
has to be stored somewhere, which is where the PDM underpinning of
PLM comes into play.
- The
product life cycle applies not only to engineering, it is a
critical component of every digital industry.
- The
days of planned obsolescence are gone — customers want to buy the
product that has the most promising lifecycle.
Career advice from experienced industry
pros
- Follow what you love
and be prepared to pivot toward it.
- Don’t be afraid to take on the
next challenging job.
- Work
yourself out of a job and then hand it off to the next
person.
- Challenge yourself to stay curious about the
work you are doing and the work you want to be doing.
Do you have an example of
extraordinary efforts or innovation during these unprecedented
times? We would love to hear your story and possibly interview you
for an upcoming episode. Please reach out to us at
www.DigitalEnterpriseSociety.org
Essentials of Product Data Management: Enabling
the Digital Enterprise by Amy B Mueller, Jorge D. Camba, Travis J.
Fuerst, David L. Ewing