Autodesk: Democratizing The PLM Landscape

Amidst a world of fierce competitions in every industry that is equally complemented with the race to continually deliver the best, adoption of PLM software solutions has become necessary to streamline concept development, design, engineering, manufacturing, sales, and marketing of products. Although large companies are spending huge on these solutions, a gap is witnessed when it comes to SMBs—the largest chunk of the business landscape. SMBs traditionally don’t have the IT expertise or the funds necessary to acquire and implement such systems, nor do they have the time to train their employees. Today, this landscape is turning over, and Autodesk is at the heart of this change.

Leveraging its unrivalled expertise in design, along with the power of cloud, Autodesk is democratizing PLM. With Autodesk’s PLM 360, even the smallest of enterprises now have direct access to a highly potent PLM software that can drastically reduce manufacturing costs and time to market. Delivered via cloud—at almost 10 times cheaper the cost compared to traditional PLM offerings—PLM 360 provides a valuable boost to SMBs in the highly competitive market. “When we looked at PLM Landscape, we realized that this market was far too complicated with respect to the contemporary technologies and solutions. The delivery of these solutions in many ways was really poor,” notes Brian Roepke, Senior Director of Forge Product Management at Autodesk. This made the traditional PLM implementations big IT driven initiatives that lasted months. With PLM 360, Autodesk countered this poor delivery mechanism. This brought immediate and widespread adoption within months of its introduction.

Today, PLM 360 has surpassed 14,000 users with 75 percent of PLM 360 deals in the SMB segment.

PLM on Cloud

PLM 360 offers a cloud-based, modern, simple-to-execute PLM environment which is accessible anytime, anyplace, through practically any web-empowered gadget. Such flexibility enables PLM 360 to make powerful PLM business application available to companies of all sizes—with low up-front costs, no capital expenditures, and no prerequisites or installation. “PLM 360 streamlines the creation and management of information, people, and processes to help manufacturers, including SMBs, become more competitive and grow their businesses,” expounds Roepke.

PLM 360 gives companies the tools to design and define the processes and workflows, along with their associated tasks, gates, and milestones. In addition to tracking the progress through workflows, PLM 360 communicates task accomplishments to all team members and can automatically notify the next accountable task owner of the required next steps.

Since PLM 360 is on cloud, the information gets updated instantly for everyone, thus bringing the confidence among managers that everyone is on the same page, with clear communication that enables effective collaboration.

A Viable Alternative to Conventional PLM

A research study by AMR/Gartner of PLM projects showed that a typical fully budgeted PLM project costs $750,000 for midsize companies and $2.6 million for large companies, which means small businesses need to rely on emails and spreadsheets for managing new product introduction processes.

This results in small companies encountering operational roadblocks at the time of ramping up production. The flexibility of PLM 360 makes it special–small businesses and start-ups can now have entry to a PLM class framework. “The next generation hardware startups are using it exactly as how it is delivered—with very little or no customization,” explicates Roepke. “Anything can be changed, customized or altered inside the platform utilizing drag and drop through the web program, which is the interesting part of PLM 360.” For example, Skully Helmets of California is a crowd funded startup that makes innovative motorcycle helmet. Skully Helmets makes navigation easier and enhances awareness for its users by linking advanced optics to an intelligent network of cameras, sensors and microprocessors. “Using PLM 360, even startups are able to establish formal supply chain processes and collaborate with their suppliers and manufacturers globally. This helps them make products more accurately and cost effectively, with improved time to market,” adds Roepke.


Catering to Broader Market

With such an elaborate adoption of the PLM 360 ranging from big market players like Greenpoint Technologies to disruptive start-ups like SKULLY, Autodesk is making long strides towards democratization of PLM – which is in coherence with Autodesk’s vision of ‘Future of Making Things’. As Roepke states, “Future of Making Things is a representation of where we believe manufacturing will be in the coming years with regards to innovation and technology which are reshaping the way we make things.” Leveraging their portfolio of cloud solutions, Autodesk’s customers will be able to efficiently design and manufacture a wide range of innovative devices that blur the line between hardware and software. “We think the appeal of a cloud-based offering like PLM 360 will only continue to grow as more companies bring the next generation of connected products to market,” concludes Roepke.