Training Tomorrow’s Digital Pioneers

The most effective digitally empowered businesses today are working at a global level. A combination of access to highly skilled resources with local and regional knowledge together are providing significant competitive advantages.

PLM delivered on the Cloud is proving to be an attractive combination.  It provides a single version of the truth, maintaining accurate product definitions for a global audience whilst delivering class leading engineering and business toolsets securely and with optimised and flexible scalability.

But, is Academia prepared to support this new and evolving digitalised environment? And is there an understanding of the latest Cloud PLM technologies, application and operational benefits?

Let’s explore some of the basics, what’s changing and the challenges the education systems face.

PLM is Complex. But it Shouldn’t be Complicated to Use.

So, why is product creation so complex?

A wide range of skill sets are needed, together with an effective collaboration and automated storage system for significant amounts of information. When you add multi-region sales, in-life component upgrades and an expanding portfolio of models with version management the complexity grows substantially.

The latest generation of PLM systems, such as the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, are designed to meet this requirement with a scalable and role-based delivery of best-in-class toolsets.

It is possible to re-educate to take advantage of the new opportunities of collaborative working or information exchange. Or to access technical resources that are defined by role performed rather than understanding some arbitrary technology packaging. But it would be more rewarding to educate potential employees in the new working methods and toolsets upfront.

The opportunity for academia to prime an evolving work force with an appreciation of how a digitised modern business operates with the latest toolsets and how a single store of product information can be exploited by the entire business.

The use and ownership models for IT and PLM are evolving

On-premise PLM requires advanced servers and specialist IT resources which can be expensive.

It’s also hard to maintain a flexible and scalable system when purchasing or leasing software. Add the cost of the software, software upgrades and maintenance and the total cost of ownership can be prohibitive.

Cloud PLM can be more flexible and cost effective, allowing organisations to rid themselves of the burden of hardware. And unlocking greater computing power while shedding IT resource, setup and upgrade costs. Cloud providers also enable organisations to rapidly scale up and down their usage creating cost effective flexibility whilst taking care of data security.

Academia’s time to prepare

It’s time that the education providers develop their business and engineering offerings.

To do so, in line with the latest collaborative PLM and digitised business working practices on the cloud, will require updating their own systems to prepare future employees. It’ll also mean exploring the techniques and methods of today’s disruptive and successful companies to educate students in a new way of working.

Investing in the latest PLM solutions may have proved difficult previously however the flexibility of cloud provision is changing that situation for many. It’s a sensible starting point to build on with Industry 4.0 technologies, use of IoT devices, digital twin and analytics.

Armed with the knowledge of the latest technologies and work practices will make graduates more attractive to future employers.

Final thoughts

Preparing the workforce is of vital importance to the businesses of tomorrow.

New technology and new disruptive routes to market are creating an educational requirement that is quite unique and not currently on offer.

Many institutions will be considering their response to the evolution of technology and business practices.

And TECHNIA are here to support that journey.