The printing press, the steam engine that ushered in the industrial revolution, the Wright Brothers plane, the transistor and its development into integrated circuits, all transformed society in simple and profound ways.
More recently Apple’s iPhone, first introduced in 2007, has been credited with spawning a sea change (more like a tsunami) in technology and society. Since its introduction it has changed or influenced the following:
- It governs your life from when you wake up, what appointments you remember to keep, and which way to go.
- It lightened your pocket, eliminating a pocket camera, a GPS device, and a flashlight.
- It has made possible new industries, from ride sharing, to how we shop, take home delivery, banking, and how we get our news.
- It created a worldwide supply chain infrastructure for parts such as screens, tiny motors to vibrate instead of ring, dense batteries, accessories, and more than 5 million new jobs in China.
- It has created an app ecosystem for developers with a global audience.
- Hardware devices such as drones, scooters, and home automation are all part of the smart phone ecosystem
- Your content, in the form of texts, tweets, videos, etc. now comes directly to your pocket in a device that rivals the old mainframes in its computing power.
- The enablement of social media, which is itself causing a sea change to our culture, and it captures actual events as they happen
You are tech savvy, you are probably an early adopter. In your pocket is the latest smart phone available. You’ve kept its OS up to date and customized it with specific functions and applications. You are taking full advantage of the latest everything.
Imagine if you were still using the original version. You would not be taking advantage of most of the above, you would still be using it primarily as a phone and taking a few uninspired and mediocre photos, watching blocks drop instead of marshalling armies for virtual war games, and feel the shame and hear the snickers from co-workers as you pull it out of your pocket. Instead you have upgraded your phone regularly. Apple and Android manufacturers bring out a new hardware version virtually every year and your software is being upgraded at regular intervals. Your phone is no longer a phone but a trusted companion, governor of your existence, and has been transformational in your life.
Now what about your PLM solution? Still using the original version, you fought to implement so many years ago? CIMdata recently did a study and found that if you are the average Dassault user, it has been almost nine years since you have upgraded. If you are a PTC instance, it has been over eight years and if you have installed Siemens, it has been almost 12.5 years since you last upgraded. (You can read Mark Reisig’ s blog, “Is Obsolete PLM Software Killing Your Business” for a deeper look at this study and its findings). You are stuck, using the original version of your technology, nobody is snickering, but your business is stunted, your productivity is stagnant, and any aspirations for Digital Transformation are stymied.
There are several reasons you are held back from upgrading and using current technology. First is cost. The investment to upgrade a PLM system, in most cases, is often measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to over $1M. Second is time. Time to upgrade is usually a year of aggravation and disruption. Third is customizations. We all do it. No out of the box system does everything you need, and certainly not after eight years or more of changing business conditions and requirements. So, we customize while knowing that bringing customized functionality forward into a new version is technically impossible or cost prohibitive.
What is needed is a sea change. A fundamental change that can transform your engineering ecosystem. “Staying current on a modern, well architected solution is critical to addressing unforeseen requirements long into the future. This resiliency happens when the platform is architected for flexibility and is kept current.”
The answer is a PLM solution where:
- Customers have upgraded, on average, every 1.5 years versus 8-12 years for others.
- A system where upgrades cost less than $50k versus up to over $1M.
- Upgrades take about 3 months to complete.
- Customizations are brought forward to the new version automatically..
- Upgrades are included in a subscription cost.
The answer is Aras Innovator. A PLM offering that has been architected with the understanding that your technology cannot remain still while everything else around it is constantly changing—your business environment, your offerings, your market space, your regulatory requirements, your competitors’ actions, and customer expectations are all in flux.
Aras—a sea change offering that enables Digital Transformation.