In listening to the headline presentations at ACE, it struck me there were three shared themes that all talked about. Perhaps these are lessons learned that can be shared with others on the same journey.
Theme 1 : A clear vision aligned with business strategy drives projects
- Martin described the Audi 2025 Strategy, with layers of functionality defined by the Vee model and a common language
- Dirk spoke of the Schaeffler Roadmap for transforming from digitized paper to digitized MBSE and digitized Autonomy with business optimized processes based on global standards
- Ms H from a major auto manufacturer, talked about a Culture of Trust, Respect and Responsibility and quoted Drucker saying "Culture eats strategy for breakfast"
- Brian related how L3 expanded their vision and transformed the program scope
- Audi told us about the ASE using Aras and Teamcenter and PTC tools, how the IT landscape looked like a bazaar and of a future in which "the user has the best tools to transform inputs into outputs.
- Schaeffler talked about the user having one view of data prepared by others using the Schaeffler Semantic Information Layer supported by multiple tools
- Ms H described 'scalability across domains' and interfaces with proprietary machines saying that "the flexible platform is the main reason we chose Aras"
- L3 spoke of integrating PLM, ERP and CRM to improve product development processes for work instructions, documents, bids and quotes, process planners and closed loop quality systems to provide end to end traceability
- Martin highlighted the need for "learning while doing" and described adopting scrum technology, making small steps and failing fast, and saying "Aras has a platform for quick wins"
- Dirk described how Schaeffler used 3 week sprints with 250 user stories in a release, with 25 per sprint saying "only when they see it do they know what needs to be changed" and "Don't develop for 3 years, when it's done you'll have a system that is 3 years out of date
- Ms H spoke of the 100% Agile goal, the definition of the Minimum Viable Product and how business and dev-ops teams used private cloud, continuous integration and automated testing
- Brian told us about the L3 War Room, and the Phased Agile approach and the need to allo, requirements to change and grow, resulting in On-Time and On-Budget deployments and contributing to cultural change