The PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA) is much more than a growing LinkedIn Group! We are an international community of professionals who work with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) enabling technologies and are collaborating, educating, and advocating for a more sustainable decarbonized circular economy.
What is our Motivation?
We are excited by the professional opportunities and motivated by the technical challenges to create a sustainable circular economy and low-carbon future for all industries, communities, nations, and life forms on the planet that depend on healthy ecosystems to not just survive but thrive and prosper.
We believe the PLM profession is uniquely qualified to participate in a leadership role to accelerate the rapid transformation of energy, products, and industries that will be required for a sustainable future.
The application of PLM in creating more sustainable products, processes, and a planet may very well be the most challenging yet rewarding use of PLM we will see in our careers!
Who are Participants?
The PGGA is an informal, non-commercial international group and as such there is no process or cost to participate. Our only requirement is a sincere professional, educational, or personal interest in the application of PLM-enabling technologies to produce products and processes which support sustainability.
Our PLM Green LinkedIn Group now has over 1,000 members from dozens of countries around the world. Participants include engineers, designers, executives, software developers, researchers, consultants, founders, marketers, faculty, students, interns, investors, retirees, and other professionals of different nationalities, ages, genders, and experience levels.
What are our Goals?
Our primary mission is to develop a global network and foster a coalition between professionals who use, develop, research, market, consult, teach, or support PLM business strategies, technologies, and software solutions that have value in transitioning to more sustainable products and economies. By belonging to a community that shares this interest and aspiration, we hope to not only inform but also to inspire each other.
As a near-term goal, we seek to advance the role and promote the value of PLM technologies in helping to assess, reduce, mitigate, and adapt to climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. Only then can long-term sustainability become more attainable.
To create this platform, PGGA is organized by special interest topics or themes that currently include: Sustainability, Climate Change, Green Energy, Circular Economy, and Life Cycle Assessment. Each of these themes have their own group SME moderators, objectives, and activities which can be found on the PLM Green website.
What Technologies are Relevant?
We affirm that PLM is not a single technology nor a software product, but a business strategy that is enabled by numerous technologies and software solutions used over the lifecycle.
These technologies include but are not limited to: Product Data Management (PDM), Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computer-Aided Design (CAD), Digital Twins (DT), Digital Manufacturing (DMfg), Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing (AM/3DP), Product Portfolio Management (PPM), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Augmented/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO), Multi-Physics Simulation (MPS), Product Cost Management (PCM), Service Lifecycle Management (SLM), Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM), Configuration Management (CM), Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), High Performance Computing (HPC), Enterprise Collaboration & Innovation Management (ECIM), and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), and numerous others.
Additional information about these technologies and software solutions can be found in the PLM Ecosystem Atlas & Directory.
What are Example Applications?
There are already dozens of emerging uses of these technologies to support rapidly evolving sustainability targets. These include:
- design products and engineer processes that are more energy efficient
- develop and scale new sources of renewable green energy supplies
- maintain, improve efficiency, and extend the lifecycle of long-life assets
- predict, monitor, and track carbon footprints of products and processes
- account for Scope 1, 2, and most important Scope 3 emissions across supply chain
- providing data, processes, and platforms for performing Life Cycle Assessments
- overcome hurdles in carbon-intensive industries like aviation and marine
- produce, store, and transmit alternative energy supplies such as green hydrogen
- capture and sequester human-generated carbon and methane emissions
- develop green manufacturing processes for steel, cement, and other materials
- create virtual digital twins to test new processes and optimize product uses
- simulate and test global geoengineering technologies along with their risks
- recycle, reuse, repurpose, or decompose products for their component materials
- minimize and mitigate the damage to infrastructures from global warming
A priority of PLM Green is to share news and thought leadership about the use of PLM in advancing these green technologies as we have done in recent “Talking Green” panel discussions.
Where to Learn More and Make a Difference
During 2024 we will continue researching and discussing examples of these applications along with sharing thought leadership blogs, white papers, case studies, and other resources submitted to us from around the globe. This will include interviews with solution providers – large and small, old and new – to learn about their sustainability journey and solutions. We will also be profiling those who we think are “Leaders in PLM & Sustainability” and engaging them with questions on what they see as the most important opportunities and challenges facing our profession.
Look for these on our PLM Green website or featured in our quarterly PLM & Sustainability News Digest. Send announcements and examples for inclusion to info@plmgreenalliance.com then register on our website to receive our news by email. Participate in the discussion by joining the PLM Green Global Alliance LinkedIn Group.
We very much welcome the contribution of your ideas, topics, expertise, and enthusiasm by contacting our co-founders Richard McFall in the U.S. at richard@plmgreenalliance.com or Jos Voskuil in the EU at tacit@planet.nl.