The topic of sustainability was high on the agenda of the SAP Product Lifecycle Management Info Days event held this past September in Hershey, PA, just west of SAP America’s HQ outside of Philadelphia.
Most SAP customer presentations at the annual event referenced the growing need to provide product data to support their company’s sustainability programs and business goals. Likewise, many informal conversations over breaks and meals also touched upon green topics.
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.
The following post was first written by PLM Green co-founder Jos Voskuil where it appeared in his European PLM Weblog in December 2022.
We are excited to close the year with the first round of the PLM Global Green Alliance (PGGA) series of interviews and panel discussions about PLM and Sustainability.
The PLM Green Global Alliance recently hosted its third panel discussion to explore how PLM-enabling technologies are supporting the sustainability imperative. These interviews expand upon our earlier article on the Intersection of PLM and Sustainability by examining the progress in sustainability being made by PLM solution providers, their partners and customers.
This time PLM Green co-founders Jos Voskuil and Klaus Brettschneider met virtually with executives from Dassault Systèmes (3DS), considered by many to be the market leader in enterprise PLM. Their discussion was with Florence Verzelen, Executive Vice President of Industry Marketing and Sustainability and Xavier Adam, Senior Manager of Worldwide Sustainability.
The PLM Green Global Alliance recently hosted its second panel discussion exploring sustainability topics with PLM-enabling technology and solution software providers. These forums expand upon our recent article on the Intersection of PLM and Sustainability by examining the progress in sustainability being made by solution providers, their partners, and customers.
This time, PLM Green co-founders Jos Voskuil and Klaus Brettschneider spoke with representatives from Autodesk, a well known leader of software solutions for the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Manufacturing industries. Their interview was with Zoé Bezpalko, Autodesk’s Sustainability Strategy Manager for Design & Manufacturing Industries, and Jon den Hartog, Product Manager for Autodesk’s PDM and PLM solutions.
The PLM Green Global Alliance recently hosted its first in a series of panel discussions and interviews that will explore sustainability topics with enterprise PLM solution providers. These forums will extend our recent article on the Intersection of PLM and Sustainability where we next hope to learn about examples of progress in sustainability being made by solution providers, their partners and customers.
Our inaugural interview was with Darren West, Product Manager Lead for SAP’s Circular Economy Solutions, who is based in the United Kingdom. We were excited to speak with SAP after reading their numerous recent announcements about the importance of sustainability and hear how they “walk the talk.”
In this Digital Engineering commentary, PLM Green Global Alliance contributor and climate change theme moderator Klaus Brettschneider examines the role of PLM in tracking the carbon footprint of products and processes.
Download and read the full article HERE.
In Part 1 of this series of posts from the PLM Green Global Alliance on the Role of PLM in Slowing Climate Change we identified four primary opportunities to employ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in reducing, mitigating, or adapting to climate change from human-generated Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, most importantly CO2. These four areas for using PLM strategies and solutions are in: developing Green Products, generating Green Energy, reducing Carbon Footprints, and adapting to Climate Change.
In this new Part 2 we will begin to examine one of those in more detail; the use of PLM-enabling technologies to collect, calculate, track, report, and most importantly reduce the carbon footprint of products and processes. This capability then enables a full and accurate accounting for the carbon footprint of individual companies, entire industries, and national economies that supply, produce or consume these products or services. It may very well prove to be the most important contribution of PLM by helping to lower emissions and slow climate change for the benefit of future generations to come.
The goal of the PLM Green discussion forum and working group on Climate Change, led by Klaus Brettschneider, is to investigate and validate the use of PLM-enabling business strategies and software technologies that can reduce human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We hope to clearly answer the question of what is the role, potential, and value of PLM in addressing the most important challenge facing humankind this century, climate change.
Product Lifecycle Management strategies and systems allow organizations to manage a product’s lifecycle in all its aspects including structures, components, materials, suppliers, and ingredients. Managing the lifecycle from inception to disposal allows organizations today to optimize manufacturing processes, to document its material or ingrediencies composition and to make sure that products comply with local or international regulations.
We firmly believe that PLM can help organizations to understand and analyze the effect of its product design, methods of production, and supply chain choices on their carbon footprint. Accordingly, we seek to educate, collaborate, and advocate for the role of PLM business strategies, enabling technologies, software solutions, and professionals in addressing climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.
This includes how the application of PLM tools, processes, and best practices can help assess, reduce, mitigate, and adapt our industries, communities, and economies to the rapidly-intensifying effects of climate change. As example, candidate topics from which we hope to research and document the use of PLM-enabling technologies include:
We will be pursuing the objectives by an agenda composed of a number of elements including discussion groups, virtual roundtables, published articles, interviews, industry surveys, and cooperative events with other organizations. Follow our progress, or better yet join us, with an email to info@plmgreenalliance.com.
International members of the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) met recently to discuss the timely new book “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need.” The panel discussion was moderated by PGGA co-founder Jos Voskuil with participants Klaus Brettschneider, Lionel Grealou, Patrick Hillberg, Ilan Madjar, and Richard McFall. Listen to the discussion HERE.
To participate in our PLM Green theme sub-group we invite you to first join the PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn Group at https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12304531/ then contact one of our moderators.
Here we have started creating a curated list of featured white papers, blog posts, presentations, case studies, webinars, and recorded interviews on the role of PLM-enabling technologies in addressing climate change. We invite you to send us examples you have come across in your own work, company, industry, or country to info@plmgreenalliance.com.
