IEN: How much progress do you see toward integrating the different segments of product development -- design, engineering, manufacturing, supply chain? What major hurdles remain, and how can they be addressed?

McKinney: A major hurdle is that the current processes ignore what happens after a product is shipped. The knowledge that comes from product performance in the field is a very integral component to the product development process, and manufacturers are missing an important part of the product lifecycle if they are only focusing on integrating design, engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain without including product field performance in the equation. The entire product lifecycle is not complete without this information. Repeat failures and future design mistakes can be avoided, and the various PLM segments can better understand their problems by studying current and past field issues.

Vartanian: Engineers are typically far removed and in the dark regarding how their designs perform in the field unless there is a catastrophe. The time lag for information to trickle back from the field can be measured in months and oftentimes years. And by the time it gets back to engineering, the information is usually a hodgepodge of anecdotal hearsay and filtered high-level reports that provide little insight to problem root cause. The factual data engineers need to speed product improvements is spread across multiple operational silos in companies today, and access to it is limited to those individuals who are database gurus and statistical experts.

IEN: Will Product Lifecycle Management play an increased role in design? Why/Why not?

McKinney: Yes, and increasing the role of PLM in design is a big part of the solution to the above hurdle of not looking at the entire product lifecycle. NinaTek is not only seeing the importance of integration, we are taking it a step beyond to include field performance, and bringing it all the way back to engineering, thus closing the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) loop. NinaTek's new solution extends the PLM view to field performance for current products and components by directly connecting product engineers to in-service field performance metrics. NinaTek's web-based analytic application, Nlighten, pulls data from multiple PLM sources such as warranty, field service, and manufacturing, into a unified product analytic data model that transforms the data into an easy-to-use visual interface.

Vartanian: Nlighten demystifies data access and analysis, and directly empowers engineers with an understanding of field product performance. As a result, manufacturers gain a competitive edge by enabling their engineers to identify and resolve field issues before they become a crisis, speed product improvements, avoid problems from the past in new designs, and therefore decrease lifecycle costs.

For a detailed discussion of Nlighten and the PLM equation, click here.