She is one of an increasing number of women in power in what was previously an almost completely masculine-dominated domain: the engineering arena within manufacturing OEM companies. We're talking about the Chief Technology Officer of ball bearing giant SKF, Victoria Van Camp.
Meet a technology leader who is enthusiastic about the promises being made by new technologies and business concepts such as IoT, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Product-as-a-Service. Van Camp also gives PLM development companies some important homework in today's in-depth interview on engineering.com.
“They say they can deliver end-to-end solutions, but the reality is more complicated than that,” says Van Camp. “No one today is able to deliver such a system. Everyone has their specific strengths and weak spots, but no one has a platform similar to what I call for: an almost Apple-like framework, where everyone can get along, help and complement each other to really solve customers' problems.”
Diversified IT, PLM, OT (Operational Technology) and automation landscapes are also typical of OEM companies like SKF, where they often invest in a variety of “best-in-class solutions” for different domains. Given this diversity, the challenge is to bring together a seamless flow of product data throughout the value chain.
SKF itself is no exception. They use PTC's PLM suite Windchill as a backbone in product development, while betting on Siemens Digital Industries' Closed-Loop Manufacturing concept as the basis for its "World Class Manufacturing” initiative.
“At its ideal level, we aim to make cutting edge solutions that last forever and really only need to be serviced and upgraded to do the job,” says Van Camp.
Her point is sustainable thinking facilitated by state-of-the-art PLM, automation and AI technology, and which at the bottom line is just good business. How does SKF get this act together?
A Change of Business Model: Function Instead of Product
Van Camp has a lot to do these days. Not only has the coronavirus pandemic messed up the planning calendar, and SKF’s factories are in the middle of an extensive digitization process, the company also lives in an industrial era where most of what previously applied is being turned upside down.
This is particularly clear in the ball bearing industry and for an industrial big-league player such as SKF. The company has 43,000 employees, 100 factories globally and revenues that in 2019 landed at close to $10 billion. Currently, SKF is undergoing a change of business model with the associated technology upgrades, automated production processes and more. SKF is on the way to making a significant impact, partly for their Industry 4.0 approach, and partly for their “Product-as-a-Service” idea.
With this idea, SKF's focus shifts from only selling a number of ball bearings to selling rotated rounds.
“We are moving away from the idea of driving out only sharp ball bearings ‘en masse’ to our customers, in order to instead sell and maintain the function they have, rotated rounds without interruption," says Van Camp.
Exciting Idea with Dramatic Consequences
Function instead of product. It’s an exciting idea that has dramatic consequences.
Suddenly, we are talking more about climate and environmental factors such as sustainability, circularity in handling and total economy, rather than about simply moving tons of new ball bearings where each broken ball bearing must be replaced with a new one, at fairly high costs. This is not something that interests customers. They do not want this kind of problem; they just want ball bearings that work without interruption.
In one stroke, approaching production from function rather than product affects the central ideas about how product development should be shifted towards new models for product development, manufacturing and aftermarket when SKF plans for the future.
New Design Thinking. You have to think in new ways in the design of the machine, the vehicle, or really all designs that contain solutions that with modern technology are now more about upgrading software, sensors or electronics in a shell or a vessel, rather than about complete machine or product changes. The product developers, engineers and others involved must move towards solutions that simplify this type of action, Van Camp claims.
For those who promise to deliver rotating rounds without interruption, the incentive to sharpen quality becomes a new focus. It’s not hard to understand; if you make money on function instead of just selling as many new ball bearings as possible, a number of new technologies will be hyper-interesting, Van Camp states.
“We must of course be able to measure the number of rounds, that’s basic, but at the same time the aim is set to a position where the ball bearings themselves can ‘tell’ us when it is time to replace something that is about to wear out, or when performance declines for other reasons,” she explains.
“But we need to get a more comprehensive 'story' from the roller bearing house itself; an analysis that is far from just about the effect of wear and tear caused by, for example, vibrations in the ball bearing due to surface wear. Then it's already too late. We have to supplement with other types of sensors and measurement data, which can indicate if there is a plug in a pipe that supplies the ball bearing with lubricating oil, for example. If such plugs are formed, none or too little of the lubricant reaches the ball bearings. Surface wear is soon a fact, with extensive and costly efforts to restore. When the lubricating oil plug has formed it must be possible to intervene, fix the oil supply and thereby reduce wear before it causes any damage to the roller bearing,” says Van Camp.
To Think of Product Development in a New Way
The point is not just to measure one thing, such as vibrations or surface wear, but also to look at the right things in a broader perspective, says SKF’s technical manager. But how do you get there?
"The chain is long and really starts at the development end with the person who designs a product that contains ball bearings," Van Camp asserts.
You have to start thinking about product development in a new way, with an angle of attack where the design is implemented in a way that facilitates operation and service efforts. If you are going to swap a ball bearing in a machine that has seen regular use, the situation in the machine is not the same as when it was new. Time has passed, and corrosion and other wear means that it is not just a matter of picking out the ball bearing—you may even have to use a crowbar or blowtorch to get rid of it.
Of course, this does not hold up in terms of consequences, such as costly interruptions or the possibility of a ball bearing that has been broken by harsh treatment during maintenance and must be replaced with a new one. The whole thing will be practically and logistically cumbersome, time-consuming—and probably also expensive.
Here you have to think in new ways in the design of the machine, the vehicle or any designs containing solutions that with modern technology are now more about upgrading software, sensors or electronics in a shell or a vessel, rather than about complete machine or product changes. The product developers, engineers and others involved must move towards solutions that simplify this type of action, Van Camp claims.
As an example, she mentions that instead of one roller bearing house, “a split roller bearing house could be designed. Or, SKF can apply new types of nano-coatings that prevent it from corroding.” It's about establishing possible design inputs for future upgrades, even when at the moment of design you may not know what these upgrades are. As little as possible—material or parts—should disappear from the product life cycle, while the products become "vessels" or "shells" that can easily be refilled and/or upgraded when new performance or capabilities are added.
“There are enormous challenges here for us as engineers,” says Van Camp.
PTC on the Product Development Page, Siemens on Automation and Manufacturing
But, of course the changes do not stop there. They propagate throughout the chain, from SKF's customers to the company's own product development and distribution—and even back to the customers and the customers' customer, where relevant. For SKF's part, this includes everything from the company's current PLM support in product development, to IT/MES/OT support in manufacturing and program support for aftermarket initiatives.
It’s easy to realize that the software and automation landscape that will take care of this not only tends to be diversified, but is also complex. Although several of the players in the PLM platform area have a strong belief that their own system can handle the entire chain "end-to-end," it is common for a single supplier's software or platform to not be able to optimally and satisfactorily meet all the needs of a business at the OEM level. However, there has been movement in a positive direction here as well, which we will go into below.
First, it should be noted that part of the matter is that the most common PLM suppliers in the mechanical engineering and other industries—Siemens, Dassault, PTC, Aras and others—have varying strengths. As SKF uses PTC and Siemens as its main suppliers of PLM and production-related software, I have taken a closer look at these companies' special strengths and challenges.
I have also spoken to Gartner's respected analyst, Marc Halpern, to get the general picture of what the market demands look like for these developers, as well as a more concrete walkthrough of the tools that each company can bring to the table.
PTC’s PLM Suite Windchill is the Backbone in Product Development
A bit of a paradox with SKF is that the company has not chosen to use PTC when it comes to IoT.
IoT has developed into a special strength within PTC, and their IoT platform ThingWorx's leading role has also been verified in several analysts' evaluations. As recently as October 2020, Gartner positioned PTC’s IoT platform–which is also linked to the Windchill PLM platform–as the market leader on the Industrial IoT side (IIoT) in the “Magic Quadrant 2020.”
On the other hand, Siemens has sharpened its IoT operating system, MindSphere, significantly over the past two years and is now considered one of the leading platforms in the report "The Forrester Wave: Industrial IoT Software Platforms, Q4 2019."
However, PTC is about more than strength in terms of developing new technologies. On the contrary, PTC has a large and broad technology capital, though there is still some distance to go to reach the goal of integrating this breadth into an increasingly smooth flowing whole. The recent purchases of cloud CAD solution Onshape and a month ago Arena PLM’s cloud-based platform are good examples of these challenges.
If you weigh together the market analysts' views on PTC's strength, it comes down to the convergence of technologies for product design, data management, support for the life cycle and aftermarket services. In these areas, PTC has capabilities that leverage these technologies and the investment in its roadmap to support products from concept to service—in particular, to leverage product data as a strategic asset throughout its life cycle.
The Rockwell Partnership is a PTC Strength
According to observations by Marc Halpern, this is something of the utmost importance for all developers who have ambitions to be leaders in the PLM and manufacturing areas while at the same time developing solutions linked to the aftermarket side.
The Rockwell Automation investment and the partnership with PTC add a manufacturing operation and maintenance dimension to what PTC can offer, which has great potential for feedback loops that continuously improve design for manufacturability and design for service.
Strong and visionary leadership is also important, which is a point fulfilled by Jim Heppelmann's leadership.
Marc Halpern further notes that, "everyone who buys and develops new solutions and capabilities on the software side will also have a lot to do in terms of creating the integration of all technologies."
In addition to its progress in IoT, PTC has also created outstanding augmented reality (AR) solutions in the product development and aftermarket areas with its Vuforia platform, which is also connected to the PLM platform Windchill and the CAD software Creo. Furthermore, Windchill's PDM Link is a strong solution on the collaborative Product Definition management (cPDm) side, and PTC was one of the earliest to advocate for and create solutions for integrated digital twins and digital threads.
Halpern notes that the partnership with Rockwell on the automation and MES/MOM/OT side is an interesting development branch within PTC. This is where PTC has started to breathe down Siemens’ neck, with respect to the links between product development and manufacturing. PTC’s Kepware is relevant in this area, as it handles the connectivity between the units on the shop floor.
2020 has also marked significant progress in the collaboration between Rockwell and PTC, where Microsoft also came in to secure the connections to their cloud platform Azure.
Siemens: Sharp cPDm and Seamless Connections to Production
Perhaps the most distinctive features of Siemens in the PLM area are the rich flora of applications and strong, seamless links between product development and manufacturing. These are currently the market's most efficient solutions for work and data flows through large parts of the value chain. In this, Siemens has good technology for PDM/PLM, model-based system technology (MBSE), digital twins, simulation and manufacturing automation functions. Furthermore, the SAP alliance, which was announced in July last year, gives Siemens unmatched opportunities to deliver a real digital thread.
“A general observation in this context is that all companies that have been on the track for a long time have a certain legacy problem to deal with. Although the leading players' capacities and resources are good, they are also burdened with some older technology on which important customers continue to depend. No one is alone in this; on the contrary, all actors—Dassault Systèmes and PTC included—must deal with a similar ‘inheritance problem,’ but those who have more of this are also challenged more,” says Halpern.
Expanded Strategic Partnership with eQube
For my take on this, it is clear that Siemens has always been strong on cPDm, which can be considered the backbone of a PLM system. Other prominent areas are solutions for digital manufacturing, automation and OT. In recent years, under Tony Hemmelgarn’s strong and visionary leadership, Siemens has also radically strengthened the simulation side and has—apart from an increasingly sharp technical capacity— advanced to a commercial position as market runner-up after Ansys thanks to Siemens’ Simcenter platform and connected apps.
New information claims that Siemens has even passed Ansys in terms of revenue. This also applies to the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) area, where the Mentor acquisition in 2017 gave Siemens a successful application. In 2019, this was the main reason why the EDA area generated 34.1 percent of Siemens Digital Industries’ total PLM revenue, according to CIMdata’s numbers.
In terms of data integration, as recently as September 2020 Siemens has focused on more seamless integration and data and processor combination across the Xcelerator portfolio, with apps such as:
- The high-end CAD tool NX
- Simcenter (CAE)
- Polarion (ALM, Application Lifecycle Management)
- Technomatix (DM, Digital Manufacturing)
- OP-center (MES/MOM, Manufacturing Operation Management)
- Mentor (EDA, Electronic Design Automation)
- Teamcenter (cPDm), Mendix (IoT collaboration)
- MindSphere (IoT operating system)
In September 2020, the integration efforts within the Xcelerator portfolio have been pushed even further forward with new and exciting entries. This is strongly linked to the work at SKF, and through an expanded strategic partnership with eQ Technologic around the eQube solution. However, my qualified guess is that the integration between PTC’s Windchill and Siemens’ Teamcenter will initially be based on ProSteps OpenPDM solution, since eQube only came onto the scene when the deal was about to be closed.
The conclusion I have drawn so far is that SKF will continue with and try to scale up its proprietary MES system, Artemis; while at the same time they work to realize the value of OP-center and the integration to Teamcenter as an option that is a possible “dark horse” in the future race.
This also aligns with Van Camp's views on the importance of being able to collaborate using competing solutions within the framework of the same company. With eQube, Siemens has gained access to a service platform for creating digital threads, which connects a number of different systems: PLM, ERP, ALM, IoT and other solutions in IT and OT (Operative Technology). EQube also expands the capabilities of the low-code platform, Mendix, and can help with industrial data and system integrations.
BOM Management is a "White Space" at SKF
An interesting fact in SKF’s case is that the BOM management has so far been based on Excel or local solutions. In short, there has been no specific and generally laid out system support for BOM management in the traditional sense, but it has been treated as a "white space" with open possibilities for local solutions.
The new agreement with Siemens, however, means there are conditions to change this and move towards a more central and cohesive solution, which may be important for streamlining production. This is highly desirable in an organization with over a hundred factories globally and which, as a consequence of Van Camp's ideas, is moving towards further growth in terms of locally based production units. In the packaging that Siemens offers, there is support for both mBOM and BOP (Bill of Process) management.
Another indication of a move towards closer cooperation with PLM competitors is the agreement between Siemens and SAP where the latter will, among other things, start marketing and selling Siemens’ Teamcenter platform. Even more interesting is the potential of closer integration between SAP and Siemens PLM platforms combined with technologically deeper ERP integrations.
It is also relevant that SKF uses SAP on the S4/Unite IT business system side, which is planned to be fully rolled out in the group, company by company, until 2022.
The Only Industry Player with Fully Machine-Mounted Sphere Ball Bearings
With this arsenal of digital tools, SKF has already come a long way. Currently SKF is the only industry player that assembles spherical ball bearings completely mechanically, automatically and without involvement from human hands.
"It is clearly a key point in the vision of our future," says Van Camp. "It's good for the environment, good for people and superior for ergonomics."
In this context, she talks about the "World class manufacturing” concept as a necessary element to remaining at the top of the market.
“The vision is simple; our customers want reduced friction, machines that run faster, longer, cleaner and safer. By solving this in the most efficient and sustainable way, we contribute to a world of reliable rotation, built on environmental sustainability," Van Camp adds.
Central IoT Monitoring a Transitional Phase
There are a number of crucial factors for SKF, one of which is IoT. This is seen both in the perspective of what is done internally in manufacturing, and to a greater extent in what it means for customers and the aftermarket.
Just over a year ago, SKF opened a Rotating Equipment Performance (REP) Center in Gothenburg, Sweden. A number of major contracts have already been signed, which include remote monitoring, analysis and improvement work on the roller bearings that SKF delivered. After 2020, almost 30,000 measuring points are being documented—almost twice as many measuring points compared to previous.
Together with a new performance-based business model, SKF has moved into an exciting position on the road to Product-as-a-Service, making them something of a pioneer in the field. However, Van Camp says, “it is still just the beginning of a journey where I believe that this type of central monitoring in the short term turns out to be a transient phase. Instead, the goal is set on software platforms that themselves can alert when something needs to be done, but also through sharp AI solutions and also take the measures needed to solve the problem."
AI Will Take Over—That’s Why SKF Purchased Presenso
A monitoring center that will eventually be closed down; why, and what will come instead?
“In the long run, we cannot have a growing army of people who will sit and analyze what is happening and execute the right measures. There is no long-term sustainable growth in such a basic idea,” says Van Camp. “Here, the focus must be on the next phase, where AI can take over most of the monitoring, diagnosis and action management. That's why we recently bought the Israeli AI company Presenso.”
In this context, sensors have a completely different future than simply monitoring. Instead, we’re talking about sensors which in broad terms can collect data from multiple machines—and not only from the perspective of vibration or temperature measurements. Remember the lubrication plug reasoning above; this means that an effective IoT solution must contain significantly more sensors than just those in the ball bearing itself.
Of course, says Van Camp, this requires “that sensors not only have to be much cheaper, but they also must be able to be placed in an intelligent environment, withstand large temperature variations and be able to measure specific flows, among other capabilities.”
The challenge is to bring the startup lab's "proof-of-concept” solutions into reality and make them work under any conditions—in dirt, in water, in cold, in heat and so on. In short, industrialization is the problem.
“The Presenso purchase will hopefully result in solutions in this direction. They have the types of listening, creative, communicative and mentally open leadership required to realize these pieces around, above all, IoT. We are investing heavily here and have employed 50 people in Israel alone to develop this area,” states Van Camp.
But these ideas for the development of solutions also show the problems with a diversified IT reality, Van Camp adds.
“Cooperation is a key word, though of course software is also a crucial element for us to be able to do what we aim for. I mention the Presenso purchase again. They had solutions that contained significantly more and broader information than anything we had previously encountered,” she says. “The AI software is what makes it possible in this context to put the right kind of data in the right ‘compartment.’ Applied to such a template, data can be used in a way that provides fantastically interesting insights. The software will of course need sensors to get the data needed, but there is also other data that the control system has and which is of great importance. Together we can, through the software, get the information we want from the software.”
Inspiring to Work with Retired CEO, Alrik Danielsson
SKF is a pioneer and not afraid to take risks, says Van Camp.
“We have a strong vision, and it remains so despite the change of CEO which will go into effect when Alrik Danielsson exits in 2021. The board has assured us of this, which is good. He has been very inspiring to work with and he has challenged us every day,” she says. “We in the technology team constantly deliver news; that they are ready is good, but Danielsson often asks the follow-up question: ‘But what about that other project we had underway?’”
SKF is constantly looking at the horizon of progress, but it is by no means easy to spread information about how things are supposed to develop in a way that makes it possible for SKF’s hundred-plus factories around the globe to keep pace.
"Exactly," says Van Camp. “In addition, we are talking about a hundred factories in a number of countries, with different laws and different traditions. If only it were as easy as sitting at the head office and deciding how it should be and so it will be; yes, then it would be easy. But that is not the case. I mean, if you look closely at the matter, there are not many large OEM companies that in a short time have completely managed to recast their footprint for manufacturing, in parallel with a technology change. Think of Volkswagen, Caterpillar or Volvo Cars. Things take time and quick adjustments are not something you see every day. We're just like them in the middle of this.”
Scalable Without Having to have to Employ Armies of People
Similar to Volkswagen, Caterpillar or Volvo Cars, this recasting of their manufacturing footprint is not something SKF will complete overnight. But they have the vision that is needed to succeed, and the work is already initiated in the form of the “World Class Manufacturing” concept.
“This is a way to automate, yes, but it is much more than that. The aim is to have a completely flexible and scalable production, without having to employ armies of people. Why is it so important? Because we believe that with IoT, we will be able to settle this with intermediate storage,” says Van Camp.
“If you think about it, what an incredible waste it is that things have to be in stock. There are certainly calculations of what enormous values are on storage shelves, but what you really want—provided that we can get to a world where everything is sensitized so all these sensors that are, or should be, in all machines that stand and go out into the world—is to get sensors connected to factories. Sensors that can say, ‘now we need a roller bearing, or now we need a cylindrical bearing.’ So, we want to get down to actually a one-piece production with zero re-setting. Before, you could only dream about that; today there are tools that make it possible for customers' machines to ‘tell’ us when it's time,” explains Van Camp.
This means it’s not about any kind of enthusiasm about what fantastic technology there is and that it should be introduced just because it’s new. Instead, it is about a consequence of something that is needed and that can be solved in a smart way.
“We have this in our Gothenburg facility, and are now also building it in our German facility in Schweinfurt. Not straight through yet, but it is under gradual introduction. It is also the case that if we are to be able to produce in Europe at all, we must have the automated scalability and flexibility I am talking about in order for it to even be possible to achieve profitability,” Van Camp explains.
“But the ‘World Class Manufacturing’ idea is available with the basic concepts for the factories that are under construction in China, for example. In the latter case, we also start from a blank sheet of paper, which of course makes it easier to get right from the start. In the factories where we already have machines and established production lines, implementation is of course more difficult,” she adds.
Not a Believer in Incremental Solutions
So, how do you implement the new technology? One thing is clear: SKF does not believe in incremental solutions. If you invest, you must go in all the way.
Not so much that you put the future of a fully functioning, existing factory at stake in a technology experiment, however. Far from it. Instead, the "full investment" is about selecting a production line in a factory and in this line, fully run the new system.
SKF's model will be implemented according to three main phases:
- Icebreaker
- Scale up
- Set "benchmarks"
The idea is that to be efficient you must choose and invest in a factory and a production line, and do it fully. It is not dangerous; if it does not work, you do not affect more than just a factory and a production line. You still have the rest of your "old" fixed assets at your disposal.
There are also lessons to be learned from each failure, says Van Camp. "And with those experiences in your backpack, you can start all over again and hopefully succeed better next time."
Conclusion? Do not start big, and do not start with everyone at once—but where you do place your bet, go all in!
But that does not mean that we in any way rationalize all people away from our production. All in all, this boils down to using people in production, where people are needed.
“We will always need people, but they will do other things than before, such as the heavy, tiring, manual and repetitive tasks on the service side. Machines and robots, controlled by smart AI algorithms and ‘machine learning’, for example, mount spherical roller bearings instead of doing it by hand,” says Van Camp.
"Environmentally Friendly Models are Good Business Today, Thanks to New Technology"
“I also link these ideas to my previous reasoning about circularity and greener manufacturing models. For this to become a reality, such as taking back, renovating and upgrading ball bearings instead of disposing of them, human assessments and some manual handling are necessary. Changing according to such a pattern is only positive from a number of environmentally friendly perspectives, and there will be a lot of new jobs created,” Van Camp says.
She adds that this type of reconditioning is something you want to do locally.
“If you need to recondition 600 roller bearings from a paper mill in Wisconsin, for example, you do not want to ship them down to Lansdale, Pennsylvania, fix them and then transport them up again. The ideal would be to do it locally. Thus, the jobs created will also be close to the customers,” she says.
This is distributed manufacturing, and there are a number of exciting ideas that SKF's CTO lists as the consequences of what modern sensor and software-based AI technology can realize.
“The vision is that we will produce machines that work forever,” says Van Camp. “We must be able to build machines together with our customers; machines that won’t break, or that never need to have an unplanned stop. But as I stated earlier, this requires new thinking in several places. Those who design machines may have to think more about establishing models that are designed for upgrading. Ball bearings and housings, for example, are not at all designed for upgrading, as I mentioned earlier. This is neither more nor less environmental thinking that is within the framework of a desirable business thinking.”
Victoria Van Camps’ Surprising Answer
What is needed to enable these great ideas? It is clear that modern technology is necessary to handle the sophisticated process chain that is now built step-by-step around the ball bearings. The PLM pieces in manufacturing are a matter of course—not just PLM in general, but the solutions that are linked in each step and integrated with the next step in the product development chain. This runs from PTC's CAD solutions in Creo, cPDm in Windchill and "design for manufacturing," which in turn can be linked to production via ProSteps OpenPDM to Siemens’ automation and production solutions in Teamcenter/Tecnomatix, OT and more on the manufacturing side.
But can you get the end-to-end solutions that PLM developers often talk about? SKF currently has both PTC (product development side) and Siemens (manufacturing, automation and IoT); are not the solutions from Siemens and PTC useful in this context?
Victoria Van Camp's answer is both interesting and a little surprising. My feeling is that her CTO-level view on the semantic meaning of the "end-to-end concept" differs from the one that PLM developers often refer to with the phrase. If you say "end-to-end" it has an absolute meaning in Van Camp's world. Software solutions for everything from A to Z must be included. If there is a link missing somewhere in the chain, then the solution is not a support from start to finish—which is what we are talking about. In contrast, PLM developers are probably a little more marketing-minded and maybe a little careless: by end-to-end, they mean that they have most of what is required and possibly just lack a bit here and there, or in the worst case a whole domain.
It may not be the whole chain, but in any case it is significantly less than what SKF intends to include in order to achieve the concept of everything to be covered.
Why Did SKF Buy the AI Developer Presenso?
In short, the “end-to-end” term can mean a few different things. An illustrative example is that SKF and Van Camp would probably never have bought the Israeli AI technology company Presenso if PTC and Siemens had been able to deliver the complete chain of tools. To keep machines with ball bearings spinning, you need as much information and data as possible. With Presenso, according to Van Camp, they got AI that could connect, AI that could include historical data and the process control system information. This is data that is contextualized and ends up in the right compartment and which, together with IoT data, can provide foresight into the ‘surveillance’ that makes the actions end up right.
However, they also got a personal leadership that can involve and inspire people in the production as a bonus with the purchase, which Van Camp considers to be just as important.
All in all, in SKF's eyes, the talk of having the entire chain falls short.
“Both yes and no; there is a lot, but not as much as we would like. Both Siemens and PTC are great at a lot, but when you as a company start to think that you have ‘end-to-end solutions,’ I think you are a little wrong. Nobody has this. If you can realize that you do not have end-to-end, you also understand the value and importance of working together,” Van Camp explains.
“ABB's and SKF's PLM teams are a good example of the development of an ecosystem and a collaboration formation that works. I think that in the PLM context, there is generally a kind of egocentric prestige that makes you think you can do everything, but you cannot. Think of Apple. There is something the PLM world lacks: someone who takes responsibility for the compatibility of the framework, where the individual actors can, so to speak, ‘take the Christmas tree decorations with them.’ Together, this will be a nice spruce. Even if there are good ambitions among players such as PTC and Siemens, they are not really there,” Van Camp concludes.
"Territorial Thinking on the PLM Side Must Go Away"
What Van Camp says is an indication that the speech often heard among developers—that it is the customers' difficulties to create sharp business models around the new technology, such as the IoT, which are the biggest obstacle to a broad breakthrough—may not be hitting quite right.
“Exactly, good that you say that,” Van Camp responds. “We have a business model, but it requires a broader end-to-end solution than what our PLM developers can offer. They cannot help us with everything from beginning to end, quite simply. Instead, they should be prepared for a situation where I bring my puzzle piece, where someone else will come with his or hers, and yet another player comes with a third piece. Together we can produce whatever we want. That's where the PLM developers and others need to get. The industry wants this to work, and collaboration around and within a compatible framework is a key to success. The prestige and territory discussions must be removed.”
Sure, she adds, “it works with PTC, it works with Siemens, but I wish they were a little more cooperative. We have more systems in different places in the world. For example, in China they work where they are and switching them to our central systems has no direct value. I wish there was a platform that is so open that our engineers can continue with what they have and where everything, as in the Apple world, fits.”
Van Camp's statements are interesting and even belligerent, not least for mirroring the fact that virtually all players on the PLM track are interested in getting as much as possible out of their respective chosen platforms and solutions.
"No Big Changes Can Be Expected," Says Gartner Analyst
This is undeniably a difficult dilemma. “Hard to get around,” said Gartner’s analyst and VP, Marc Halpern, who notes that he does not expect PLM providers to cooperate beyond the levels at which they currently cooperate.
But there are still pieces in these strategic patterns that partially meet Van Camp's wishes.
“Yes, in the way that I instead see the PLM suppliers build larger ecosystems with complementary partners, such as SAP and Siemens, PTC and Rockwell Automation and probably Dassault Systèmes and ABB—although in the latter case I have not seen much material around this,” said the analyst.
“But the basic premise is that they all want to build a bigger footprint for themselves, and not necessarily with their competitors, to improve their customers. I have said for several years that customers must prioritize openness and clear evidence that suppliers take such cooperation with their competitors seriously before spending money with any of the suppliers. Unless end users make this clear to PLM providers and act accordingly, Van Camp's desire will remain as it is—a desire that has persisted, albeit with very slow progress, for at least 30 years already,” he added.
It will be very interesting to follow how things develop around Van Camp’s wishes. It is clear that the complexity of the requirements makes it hard for any individual actor to take the entire package. There is a lot pointing in this direction, but it is far from impossible that we will eventually see development towards some kind of common framework. It is certainly a tough task, and no one needs to doubt that there will be commercial clashes based on the built-in contradiction between the customers' desired openness and the PLM developers' tendency to want to own entire businesses.
However, in principle this does not have to prevent alliances between unexpected parties from arising, as evidenced by the unexpected collaboration between Siemens and SAP, as well as PTC's partnership with Rockwell. Another example is that in automotive we see a number of instances of the combination between Siemens’ PLM suite Teamcenter, and Dassault's CAD solution CATIA.
There are several more examples, but they finally still end up with the fact that these alliances are seen more as a result of the ecosystem structure that Marc Halpern talks about, rather than a cross-border "PLM-to-PLM collaboration."
[Author's Note: I have received several comments about Victoria Van Camp's proposal where she calls for an "Apple-like" platform to facilitate cooperation between different PLM solutions, which she believes is a problem today. A common point in these comments is that Apple stands for one of the most "locked" systems out of all the systems on the market; Apple collaborates with nobody, and everything works together on Apple because you have to buy it all from Apple. Even their charging cords are proprietary. They have complete control of nearly every piece of hardware and software in their ecosystem. If someone wants to put an app on the Apple app store, Apple might agree—or they might not, in which case your app will never run on Apple. If Apple does agree, they will charge you 30% of all revenue the app ever generates. Of course, this is not a viable way forward.
However, I would like to clarify in this context that Van Camp is actually talking about, I quote, "an Apple-like" approach. It is not the same as generally picking up the whole business model. What she is looking for is rather a similar, but open, technical platform.]