Since our start in earnest in 2020, the PLM Green Global Alliance has participated in discussion panels with solution providers Aras, Autodesk, Dassault Systems, PTC, SAP, and Sustaira.  In these interviews our focus was to learn about their thought leadership, products, and experience implementing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) to support Sustainability initiatives.

Our last interview earlier this year was with a PLM consultancy representative, Mark Reisig, who is a Sustainability and Green Energy Practice Director & Executive Consultant at CIMdata. You can find that interview here with a recording we encourage you to also watch.

At the time I commented on the good news that sustainability is no longer a software marketing discussion. Companies are being increasingly pushed by their employees, shareholders, and regulators to implement sustainable strategies, and not just talk about them. It has now become clear that, like other goals for PLM, more education and guidance about overall strategy is needed before a discussion of the technologies and software to enable it.

This trend is also noticeable in our PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn community which has grown significantly in the past half year. At the time of this post, we have nearly 900 members from dozens of countries around the world. In the beginning, most participants were, not surprisingly, from solution providers. Now an increasing number of our new followers are solution architects, system implementers, practicing consultants and most importantly, users and managers from the industry.

Who is Transition Technologies PSC?

This edition we want to share the interview we recently had with Erik Rieger and Rafał Witkowski from Transition Technologies PSC (TTPSC), a global IT and PLM solution integrator known across Europe for their special expertise in PTC Windchill implementation services.

I first met Erik and Rafal during the PTC LiveWorx Conference in Boston this past May where I was an invited guest of PTC/Arena.  Read more about the conference in my post “The weekend after LiveWorx 2023”.

This chance meeting among many others I enjoyed reminded me how much I missed the conviviality and spontaneity of attending live conferences. During our initial conversation, we agreed to meet again virtually to learn more about TTPSC’s GreenPLM initiative.

What is GreenPLM?

At first appearance, the terms “Green PLM”, “GreenPLM”, or even our own “PLM Green” may look like more marketing-speak or green-washing. However, TTPSC’s GreenPLM is more than just a term as it is a software application that can be implemented as an extension, and not a replacement, to a PLM system, enabling users to make scientifically-based data-driven decisions for a more sustainable, greener product lifecycle.

I invite you to watch the half-hour discussion that I and my PLM Green colleague Klaus Brettschneider had with Rafal and Erik to learn about their plans for and experiences in implementing GreenPLM on top of the PTC Windchill suite.

View the interview now below or later here on YouTube.

What We Heard and Learned

Our discussion was a timely one on the role of PLM in Sustainability that focuses on the importance of supporting design decisions early in the process. This is what many refer to as the “80% environmental impact number.”

• Sustainability solutions should not be presented as yet another technology disruption or standalone software for designers to have to learn. Since engineers already work within the constraints of cost, quality and time, sustainability factors should be considered as the fourth set of parameters to in design decision making.
• The impact of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) from the European Commission expects 30% of CO2 reductions from the early design stage.
• Tools, resources, and materials data libraries, like ecoinvent, are becoming available to designers to support ESPR and the performance of Life Cycle Assessments (LCA).
• GreenPLM is being promoted as an easier-to-adopt design-oriented tool instead of a comprehensive ESG enterprise solution, such as Mendix-based Sustaira, a sustainability platform we discussed in this interview series HERE.
• This is reflected in the pragmatic role of GreenPLM as an extension on top of Windchill using PTC Navigate and OSLC standards, and not as yet another standalone software product.
• The regional markets, verticals, and industries TTOSC is focused upon and the progress of customers adopting green thinking PLM sustainability applications like GreenPLM.

Where to Read More

Here are a few links related to the topics discussed in our meeting:

• The GreenPLM webpage
• Transition Technologies PSC
• ecoinvent Environmental Footprint data

Concluding Thoughts

With GreenPLM, it is clear that the focus of design for sustainability is moving from an abstract market vision, promoted largely by software providers and regulatory policymakers, towards being driven by those actually responsible for implementing it in the industry.

One of the most satisfying changes we at the PLM Green Global Alliance have witnessed over the past year is the growing number of system integrators, like Transition Technologies, that are focused on helping the industry cross the chasm that can exist between vision and realization of a new technology.

We invite readers to nominate other topics, solutions, and use case examples for consideration in future panel discussions with those doing the hard work of deploying PLM to make sustainability a reality. Leave your suggestion below in a comment, send them to us at info@plmgreenalliance.com, or start your own discussion in our PLM Green LinkedIn Group.

Content used in this post was first published in October, 2023, by PLM Green Global Alliance’s cofounder Jos Voskuil in his European weblog series on “PLM and Sustainability: Talking about GreenPLM.”