In this interview Jos Voskuil outlines the three major phases of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) evolution and argues that PLM is poised to become a data‑centric platform that connects product information across the enterprise and with customers. The first phase (late 1990s‑early 2000s) was essentially an extended Product Data Management (PDM) tightly coupled to 3D CAD tools, dominated by vendors such as Dassault, Siemens and PTC, and focused on managing CAD files and the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM). Around 2005‑2006 a second phase emerged as the internet enabled global data connectivity; PLM transformed into an enterprise‑wide information backbone handling governance processes like new‑product‑introduction, compliance, and change management, with ERP players (SAP, Oracle) and newcomers (Aras, Autodesk) entering the market. Voskuil predicts a third phase in the next decade where PLM becomes a platform for product data that is shared not only internally but also with customers, supporting a data‑centric approach. He contrasts classic document‑driven management—where information is locked in files, duplicated, and hampers a single source of truth—with a modern data‑centric model that stores requirements as discrete data objects, enables real‑time reporting, and allows seamless integration of data from R&D, service, and customers. This shift demands a cultural transformation: organizations must move from owning data to sharing it, re‑wire mindsets, and treat CRM and Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) as disciplines rather than siloed systems. Voskuil highlights PLM’s advantage over ERP in managing design‑centric change and global data, positioning PLM as the logical foundation for future innovation platforms.
Chapters
If you look at PLM, PLM has gone currently through two main stages and a third one upcoming. The first stage of PLM was very much an extended PDM. It was product data management extending it to manufacturing, and it was very close related to the 3D CAD systems the company were using. And you could see that companies like Dassault, Siemens, and PTC, they were leading the PLM path at that moment. Main topics were how do I manage my CAD and my MBOM. That was the first stage of PLM, and you could say it's very close to PDM, and people are still discussing where they are on that level. A major change came around 2005, 2006 when we had global connectivity with the internet and with data. And that's where also PLM became much more an enterprise backbone of product information. So also taking care of governance processes like new product introduction, compliance, change management. And this is where also other players came in like SAP and Oracle from the ERP side. They also were going to play the PLM game and newcomers Aras and Autodesk were also managing the data connectivity. So this was the stage where PLM became really an information backbone, I would say fulfilling the acronym Product Lifecycle Management, because before it was just a small engineering-centric approach. And what we see now, this has been accepted, and I think what we will see upcoming in the next 10 years is that PLM is going to be much more a platform for product information and for sharing also information with customers in the future.
What is the difference between classic document management and digital document management?
Well, if you look to classical document management, it's very much the implementation of how in the past we worked with papers. We were shifting papers from organization to organization, and we automated this in the modern way. And if you look at this approach of a document-driven approach, it locks up information in a file. It locks up information in locations where other people are not aware of it. And this makes it very hard to maintain the big dream that all companies have, which is the single version of the truth. How do you know if you have the single version of the truth in front of you if a lot of other copies and documents exist elsewhere? And people are used to store the information close to themselves, so maintaining the single version of the truth for documents is very complex. Let's take for example if you have a product specification Many stakeholders are involved in defining pieces of the information for the new product or for the customer order. And if all those people would be working in documents, they would every time have to reread information, they have to share information. It takes a lot of time. Where if in the modern PLM systems you have your requirements as pieces of information in the database and people can work on their own data, And when they want to have an overview, they can generate a report, which is the modern way of a document, and to see what is the current status. And this approach is much faster, it's much more flexible, and it allows companies with less overhead to work on exactly the same data and at the end implement the dream of a single version of the truth. I think the data-centric approach enables a lot of different changes in an organization. The main thing is you change from owning information and sharing pieces of information across your whole enterprise, and this allows you to work completely different than the old classical document approach. And I think that's the big evolution we're going to see in the future. For example, if you have data from your customers, and you can combine it with the data from your R&D organization. You understand how your products behave in the field. You understand what issues customers are facing. In the document approach, or in the old way, you would never see those documents coming from service because they are disconnected from the R&D organization, and only when it is a severe issue it will pop up. So data gives you the freedom to to get information from anywhere, combine it in reports, in analysis, and make better decisions on your business. And having said that, the big change is also it's not anymore about storing all the data in your own system, but it's about connecting data from different systems, from different environments. And that's the main change, far beyond the document handling in S/4HANA Data.
What does the data-centric approach mean for companies?
I think for— if you would look to the data-centric approach, what it means for companies, it's very hard to digest at the moment for the management. They grew up with the old concept of owning data. They were used to have data under their control, if not under their near control, and the data-centric approach is a radical change in sharing information, combining information all around. The newer generations are used to that, they are used to work in modern social tools which somehow are the concept of the data-centric approach. So having this mindset through the whole organization is very difficult because you have so much, I would say, old habits and you have to change, and changing is never easy. Especially if the new approach is not yet clear everywhere. And I've seen an example of a company where they changed their whole labelling process from documents to data. They said technically now it works, the biggest challenge was to change and rewiring the people in thinking different and having a different approach. So cultural change management and leadership there is most important. To drive this change for an organization. Understanding where you go, because just doing data-centric because it's in fashion is also not helping you too much. So you need to know what you want to achieve and when. Currently, when we talk about CRM or SLM, we often think in systems, or we think in departments in an organization. So it's very much a silo-based way of thinking. In the modern approach, CRM and SLM become disciplines. It becomes a way to connect to your customers, to manage the services of your customers, which is an end-to-end connectivity of information through your whole organization. So what I see with the upcoming of new platforms which might have a PLM foundation also CRM and SLM systems have to participate in this approach by sharing information and making sure that wherever you are in the organization, you can create your own information dashboard to support your role. And that means that at the end, SRM and SLM for me are just domains in the total organization, no longer systems. It's the way how you perform your business processes. I think the biggest advantage of PLM is that it already has 10 years experience almost with a data-centric approach. Especially the newer PLM systems, as I said in the beginning, they were focusing on managing governance, on managing data all around the world in a global manner. And this combined with the openness that PLM systems have historically to connect to to different sources of data, you see that they have the most advanced way of managing data and managing change. Because you might say ERP companies also already have the experience of managing data, but ERP companies never, I would say, were focusing on managing the change and iterations needed on the virtual world, on the design world. So the PLM systems have, I would say, already a maturity to become this business platform or this innovation platform for the future, and they are, I would say, a logical source to build upon for future platforms.
