Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing all phases of a

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1 ESI4628 IE Computer Applications Franklin Duran Interoperability and Standardization Between PLM Systems: How Different Vendors Can Exchange Information Across Different Operating Systems and Programming Languages Abstract Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing all phases of a product s life cycle, which effectively provides a method to integrate and share product information from department to department within a company, and also vendor to vendor. An aspect of PLM that plays a critical role in determining its success is the interoperability and standardization among PLM systems. The objective is to utilize standards for interoperability that will allow systems from different vendors to exchange data and share information, regardless of operating systems and programming languages. This paper presents the different standards currently being used by vendors that establish the necessary level of interoperability to facilitate the flow of information during vendor interaction. How these standards achieve the above goals, despite the obstacles encountered when making PLM transactions, will also be discussed. Background/Introduction Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is responsible for companies saving millions, even billions of dollars each year. Because with it, they are able to manage the information generated during a product s lifecycle better, from beginning to end and all activity in between. Currently, one of the most important issues facing PLM Systems is whether they can be interoperable with PLM systems from other vendors. In the past, each vendor has developed their PLM system based on their strengths, and for this reason, there has been a large disconnect among companies within the supply chain. This

2 2 disconnect can be attributed to differences in product documentation practices, software from company to company, and a lack of interoperability among vendor PLM systems. Ultimately, these factors create a barrier when trying to access another company s product information and data. Problem and Existing Solutions To highlight the importance of the above factors, let us take an example, the basic unit of measure known as a meter. If company A decides to use meters in their schematics, while company B uses inches instead of meters, this could make documents for inspection and testing created by company A useless because of the difference in unit of measure. Even more critical, software from different vendors may be using different types of programming languages that do not allow the communication of information because there is no interoperability among them in the first place. The industry has confirmed the importance of this problem. Throughout the past several years, it has created and implemented methods to facilitate bi-directional access of data and information by establishing documented standards, whose sole purpose is to bridge the gap, regardless of the specific vendor PLM system. However, within the solution of standards lie other problems that keep both vendors and customers from fully experiencing the level of integration they truly desire and need. There are three different types of standards that are currently in use. The first is known as open standards, which refer to an agreement that people make so that products and systems made by different parties can work together (Srinivasan, 2006). It is important to note that open standards are not software applications. In actuality, they are nothing more than specifications that explain how information should be formatted

3 3 and represented. They are developed by standards organizations ranging from small industry groups to large, official international bodies. Some examples of open standards in the PLM arena are STEP (Standard for Exchange of Product Model Data), XML, and UML. The second type of standards is industry standards. These standards are technologies that are commonly used, but are not open or democratically managed by a group of users (Srinivasan, 2006). An example of this is Java language. Although its use is very common today, the fact that one company has a great deal of control over Java s development process classifies it as an industry standard, not as an open standard. Finally, the final type of industry standards is de facto standards. They are in wide use today because of their value or association with other technologies, and not necessarily because they were produced by a standards organization (Srinivasan, 2006). Therefore, they may not be the best option for a company to choose if interoperability among PLM systems vendors is of greatest importance to them. An example of a de facto standard is Microsoft Windows. Other companies may be using Linux instead. As alluded to earlier, although these three types of standards are currently being implemented to facilitate data exchange, the different types of standards mentioned above create differences among vendors and customers that essentially cause them to disagree about which standard should be used in the development of their software. Customers desire the use of open standards since they increase their choices, future capabilities, and elasticity in running their business. However, PLM software vendors typically want to make their products in-line with de facto standards, because this allows them to control

4 4 the content and price of their products (Srinivasan 5). This conflict adds to the difficulty in providing truly interoperable PLM systems despite differences in vendors. Comparison of Different Methods There is currently a large amount of standards that a company could elect to use, as shown below: Figure 1 - Open PLM Standards Currently Underway (Srinivasan 2) This figure shows that different types of standards are necessary at different stages of a product s lifecycle. The current trend in software caters to open standards because vendors must have the support of their customers to sell their systems. Therefore, the following comparison of methods is for open standards only. The most widely used and recognized open standard for the exchange of product model data (STEP) for PLM was developed by the International Standards Organization (ISO) and is known as ISO ISO is a system of application protocols (APs) that contain standards for reading and writing data to create interoperability among different PLM systems for effective data exchange. Although this is the most widely used system because of its well defined standard content models, its implementation takes a greater amount of time than some of

5 5 the other open standards in the market because of its detailed and involved ISO process. XML (Extensible Markup Language) and UML (Unified Modeling Language) are also currently being used because of their difference in capabilities and speedy delivery of standards since they are not constrained the ISO processes at the STEP is. XML is developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) while UML comes from the Object Management Group (OMG). These new open standards are important because they provide rich, standardized syntactic environments (Srinivasan 8) to capture much needed semantics in PLM, such as invoicing, creating forms, and other business functions. SysML is currently being developed as well to be able to manage systems engineering information from the basis of actual standards (Srinivasan 8). However, although these types of systems can be implemented by customers on a much quicker scale than ISO, sometimes the lack of detail in coordination can obstruct the development of necessary standards. The one development that has allowed each of the above systems to really work for their customers is the integration of the internet into PLM systems. This functionality allows companies to be able to access another company s product data anytime, from anywhere. This is why over the last 5 years or so, software has become web-oriented. According to Garetti et al. (2005), The development of web-orientated software enabled many companies to spread their know-how in an easier way and considerably contributed to the enlarged business concept. Therefore, without the internet, the industry would be light years away from accomplishing the goal of full interoperability among departments, companies, and vendor PLM systems, no matter how good STEP, XML, and UML are on their own.

6 6 Summary Although each of the previously mentioned open standards has their own strengths and weaknesses, the optimal solution to the interoperability issue appears to be a combination/harmonization of all of these standards: STEP, XML, UML, and the internet, rather than selecting just one. XML and UML s content and capabilities are actually interrelated with ISO standards, despite the fact they are currently being developed outside of ISO, so much so that XML and UML are currently being integrated into ISO to create this harmonization. According to Susan Urban et al, The STEP community s synergistic efforts to generate XML schemas and datasets, and UML models from EXPRESS schemas, will preserve and proliferate the adoption of STEP, given the popularity of XML and UML. The Interoperability between these technologies leads to interesting application architectures. Finally, the internet is what makes the exchange of information across each of these systems more efficient and readily accessible on demand. Essentially, this conglomeration makes excellent use of each of their strengths to create one open standard that utilizes the strengths of STEP, XML, UML, and the internet to provide vastly improved interoperability among different vendor PLM systems, while appealing to more customers, and ultimately leading to better information management, a healthier exchange of data, and larger profit margins for customers.

7 7 References Abramovici, M. and O. Sieg. Status and Development Trends of Product Lifecycle Management Systems, Proceedings of IPPD 2002 Wroclaw, Nov 21-22; Wroclaw, Poland. ISBN: Aziz, Hayder, James Gao, Paul Maropoulos, and Wai M. Cheung. Open Standard, Open Source and Peer to Peer Tools. Cranfield University, University of Durham. Burkett, Michael, Kevin O'marah, and Laura Carrillo. "CAD Versus ERP Versus PDM: How Best to Anchor a PLM." AMR Research (2003) Garetti, Marco, Sergio Terzi, Norma Bertacci, and Maurizio Brianza. "Organisational Change and Knowledge Management." Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management 1 (2005): Gischner, B., P. Lazo, K. Richard, and R. Wood. "Enhancing Interoperability Throughout the Design &." The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (2005): Hogg, Bob. "Creating Adaptive Service Networks - Service is No Longer Just an Afterthought." Sbusiness (2005): AFSM International. Pratt, Michael J. "ISO 10303, the STEP Standard for Product Data." Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management 1 (2005): Srinivasan, Vijay. Open Standards for Product Lifecycle Management. International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management, IBM Corporation and Columbia University. Sudarsan, Rachuri, Ram Sriram, Conrad Bock, Steve J. Fenves, and Sebti Foufou. A Core Product Model for PLM with an Illustrative XML Implementation. The PLM 05 International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management, July Urban, Susan D., and Ravi Rangan. "From Engineering Information Management (EIM) to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)." Journal of Computing and Information Science in Engineering 4 (2004):