Resources > Guru Speak > Simon Holloway
Simon Holloway, Practice Leader, Bloor ResearchCaption: Simon Holloway, Practice Leader for Process Management and RFID, Bloor Research, UK
Simon’s IT background spans some 20 years as an IT consultant specialising in IS/IT strategy planning, information management, corporate data and process modelling, business process reengineering, software selection and project management. He has worked in IT organisations that include Solidsoft, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Forté Software and Redfern Consulting where he has built up a reputation for his ability to provide translation between the business and IT worlds. He has also worked for a variety of industry and service based organisations including: Cadbury Schweppes, PITO, British Airways, Glaxo and Scottish Widows. Simon joined Bloor in 2007 and now holds the Business Process brief. Younomy recommends his blog: The Holloway Angle to anyone who has to do anything with social product development, cloud computing, and of course, Product Lifecycle Management. "Configuration starts from a non-configurable base"
Younomy: What are your views on configurable products (made-to-order product that are assembled by customers)? Simon: It is really all about that word “configurable”. In the automotive industry, customers are already able to choose options to add to the base models – so this is configuration. In the aerospace industry, airlines and Defence Ministries are able to choose options such as engines, seats, weapon systems – this is configuration. Recently I was visiting a small pottery in England and they offered people the chance to come in on a particular day and put their design on a teapot – this is configuration. If you notice all of these examples, the configuration starts from there being a non-configurable base solution – a car model, an aeroplane or a teapot. Manufacturers have to balance customer choice with economies of scale, the more customer choice, the more the product becomes a one-off with the associated higher cost for customers. Certainly, product life-cycle management (PLM) products, at the top end of the market, are able to allow for different options for certain components to be catered for. Younomy: Are new social media technologies and corresponding social trends make their way into product development organizations and transform the way product development teams collaborate with public to bring great products into the marketplace? Simon: The first piece of social media that has been seen in PLM is the use of portal software (from companies such as Microsoft, IBM or Oracle) to enable collaboration between various parties involved in the research and development of products and services. There are many examples in PLM industry that show how this use of portal technology has reduced cost – particularly travel costs. There are currently a number of presentations being made around the conference circuit talking about the use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter (in product development). Some companies, Boeing for instance, have said never – but never can be a short time! There are a number of hurdles (not least, security) to go through before we start to really see social media as a real component of PLM. I would say it is a matter of when, rather then why or how. Kenneth Wong of Desktop Engineering recently posted a blog in which he said, “I think social media is going to change the way we live, work, think, fall in love…if you have for some reason opted out to play in this field, I would have to say you might be missing out. It is really worth checking out before it’s too late.” Younomy: Can we see a day when people collaborate with engineers to design their own cars - for instance - online and get them manufactured by car factories? Simon: To some extent this is already in operation. When you go to an automotive dealer to choose a new car, they will step you a process where by you select various options on the base model that you want. This is then used by the dealer to find if such a model has already been built and can be got quickly or to supply to the production line to be added to the build schedule. I don’t think we are quite there yet when the major manufacturers, such as BMW or Ford offer the ability for you to completely scratch build your car – economies of scale fight against this. However, this is not to say that some enterprising specialised automotive vendor won’t adopt this in the near future. But you will have to pay for this flexibility! Younomy: What are your views on social product development? Which are the sectors (such as automobile, healthcare, etc) that can get into this? Simon: When producing a new product, a company is looking to gain revenue through its sales that hopefully exceeds the cost that it takes to develop the product. Manufacturer very often will patent their inventions to protect their investments against competition. So now we start talking about a new way to develop products and there are certain business and technical benefits that can be gained, but in the end, how does the lead company gain revenue. Advocates of social product development will point to the successes that have been achieved in the “Open” software sector. Here large companies have developed code and made it freely available to others – the equation however is the same: you have paid for the development and possibly gained help from others that has made the code better, but what do you gain? Credentials? Businesses will have to understand when to use social product development and when not. I foresee that a product development lifecycle will go through a series of stages when social product development will be used and other stages when development will be done in-house or amongst a closed community. I also think that we will see a lot of the base model with configurable options scenarios as this is a win-win situation for both customers and manufacturers. Younomy: What type of new business models are PLM companies evolving in the wake of social media and cloud computing? Simon: Wikipedia defines business model as, “the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value - economic, social, or other forms of value. The process of business model design is part of business strategy”. I want to get aw ay from the technology. We need to look at the current problems that businesses face and then see how social media technology may be of help. The key challenges in manufacturing (and also to manufacturing customers – particularly, retail) is the need to collaborate, and to see what is described as the “big picture”. So when we look at, say a supply chain for food, the big picture says we start with the farm and then follow up the chain to the abattoir and from there to the packer and then to the logistic carrier and then to the retailer; but that is not the end. The end point is you and me who buy the food. All those companies and individuals involved in this chain add value and need to know what each other is doing as it affects that organisation in the chain. To be able to do this in our computerised world, we need to able to share common data and information. But we only want to share certain information and data with certain people and organisations at certain times and when they are at certain locations. So security and identity management are very important. These can be associated also with the need to understand the process and the rules that are involved. What we are seeing in the software market is the emergence of different approaches to solving the problems of collaboration across the big picture. The first comes from vendors who have well established solutions. They are opening up their products so that competitor tools can be used with them. This whole approach is based around the incredible push for the development of all sorts of standards; many of which are based around a base of HTML or XML. The second approach is to provide a cloud based solution that either anyone can use or that can work seamlessly with what you already have. These technical solutions should not be confused with business models; they are just ways of solving certain problems. Younomy: Finally, what are your views on 'open design'? Simon: Wikipedia has a great definition of Open design – “Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation.” The whole “Open Design Movement” owes a lot to what has happened in the development of open software. The trouble is what is right for the software market is not necessarily right for other markets. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot that can be learnt from the pains that we went through in developing a correct business approach to the development of open software that can be used for other Open Design scenarios, but not everything will completely fit. For each business scenario, we need to see what we can reuse and what we need to evolve and what we need to develop new to create a satisfactory business working model. |