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Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has become a strategic pillar for modern industrial organizations. Far beyond engineering data management, it now forms a central ecosystem connecting business processes, teams, product data, and numerous enterprise systems such as ERP, MES, and design tools.
Yet, one challenge remains: how to ensure these investments truly deliver the expected value?
During this webinar, several industry experts analyze the main obstacles encountered during PLM deployments:
- Inconsistent user adoption
- Insufficient data quality and governance
- Proliferation of parallel tools ("Shadow IT")
- Difficulty in harmonizing processes across teams
- Lack of visibility into ROI and actual usage
The speakers highlight a shared observation: the challenges are primarily human and organizational, rather than technological.
The webinar also explores several levers for improvement:
- Implementing robust data governance
- Change management and continuous communication
- Early definition of relevant performance indicators
- Using Digital Adoption Platforms (DAPs)
- How usage analytics and artificial intelligence help identify friction points and optimize user journeys
Finally, experts share their vision for new intelligent assistance approaches, including conversational assistants and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) systems, which can simplify the user experience and accelerate the adoption of complex industrial tools.
Key takeaways from the webinar
User adoption is the true driver of ROI
The success of a PLM project doesn't solely depend on the quality of the deployed solution, but primarily on its daily use. Even the most powerful platforms cannot generate value if users bypass processes, revert to old habits, or only utilize a fraction of the available features. User adoption must therefore be considered a strategic performance indicator, not merely a deployment step.
Data quality determines trust in the system
A PLM is first and foremost a data repository. When information is incomplete, inconsistent, or poorly migrated, users quickly lose trust in the tool. This situation encourages the emergence of parallel practices, such as using Excel files or unofficial databases. Rigorous data governance and harmonization of repositories are essential to ensure team buy-in and process reliability.
Measuring usage is essential
Deploying a PLM isn't enough: it's crucial to understand how users truly interact with the tool. Analyzing usage data helps identify friction points, underutilized features, and discrepancies between defined processes and actual practices. By leveraging relevant indicators and behavioral analytics, organizations can drive long-term adoption and more easily demonstrate the return on investment of their projects.
Digital adoption platforms accelerate skill development
Given the increasing complexity of industrial environments, digital adoption solutions provide invaluable assistance to users. Through interactive guides, contextual help, and real-time recommendations, they facilitate tool adoption and reduce operational errors. Combined with analytics and artificial intelligence, they also enable personalized user support while accelerating the achievement of business objectives.
The success of a PLM project is first and foremost a human transformation
One of the webinar's key messages is that PLM-related challenges are rarely technological. The main obstacles typically involve team alignment, process harmonization, communication, and change management. Successful organizations are those that involve users from the project's early stages, clearly explain the objectives, and maintain constant dialogue throughout the transformation.
In summary
The main takeaway from this webinar is that the success of a PLM project primarily relies on users, processes, and data governance. While technology provides an essential foundation, it is the organization's ability to manage change, harmonize practices, and drive adoption that determines the true value created by the investment.
