PLMIG announces a new PLM Handbook for SMEs

Small to medium-sized businesses (also known as SMBs, SMEs, PMIs or PMEs) are a massive part of the world economy but a tiny part of the PLM marketplace. In the USA they contribute up to 30% of industrial output, while in countries such as Italy they form up to 95% of the industrial sector.

The usual approach of the PLM industry to this sector is to try to sell "PLM Lite", in the belief that smaller companies simply need a stripped-down version of what works for large corporations.

The recent PLM Standardisation Workshop in Milan showed that this approach is misguided. Many SMEs are striving to make the kind of improvements in performance and delivery that PLM could provide, and their problem is that a conventional PLM approach just does not match the world they inhabit.

The PLM Handbook for SMEs has been generated from the working discussions in Milan, and is based the strong SME/PMI presence at the event. It provides an effective methodology for adopting and implementing PLM, and can be used by SMEs or their advisers. It is published this week as the Q3 issue of the PLM Journal.

For more information, see the PLMIG web site or contact Roger Tempest at sme_plm@plmig.com.

The PLM Interest Group is a global Group which brings together its members to work proactively to solve their PLM problems. It is developing a new generation of applied PLM standards including the PLM Best Practice Library and the Path to PLM; and has previously run workshops that have produced the PLM Benchmarking Handbook; the PLM-SCM Guidebook; and the PLM Maturity Reference Manual.