Yesterday, I caught the webcast “Global Top 10 Predictions for Product Lifecycle Strategies in 2008.” The presentation by Joe Barkai, the product lifecycle strategy practice director for Manufacturing Insights, looked at global trends in the manufacturing community with an emphasis on product lifecycle management (PLM) processes and infrastructure. Here are some key highlights that stood out from my perspective.
Joe opened the presentation with a discussion of two key factors that he saw as underlying drivers for manufactures: compliance & sustainability, and the aging of the workforce. This second issue is certainly consistent with what I hear from global companies. The generational turnover in the work force is causing great concern about how to best capture and preserve the intellectual capital that is the basis of innovation.
This set the stage nicely for Joe to identify the need for innovation as the number one prediction for 2008. This was great validation in that traditionally the PLM centric view has positioned innovation as an adjunct. But with this presentation, Joe put innovation at center stage.
Another of Joe’s predictions was around the re-emergence of knowledge management as an area of interest. This was no surprise as it tied directly back to Joe’s opening remarks. But, the case was made nicely pointing to the loss of knowledge companies are experiencing and the transformation of the workforce. These trends, along with the increasing pressure to leverage knowledge more quickly, suggest that any successful innovation agenda must consider how to equip global knowledge workers with seamless, in-context access to breakthrough concepts.
As a side note, Joe took direct aim at Google noting it as an unsuitable tool for innovation research. Joe’s position is that keyword based search technologies can not meet the information demands of product designers. Rather, semantic technologies that can provide design-intent based search capabilities are required.
In closing the session, Joe identified key recommendation for manufacturers. His number one recommendation: accelerate investments in decision making capacity. This speaks directly to the innovation agenda. Sustainable innovation practice is the foundation for enabling good decision making.
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