Welcome ...

… to my web site extended business card

As a senior advisor I help companies turn their product data into value-driving assets, improving effiency, quality, time to market and new value streams – all by digitalizing the flow of product data across the enterprise.

My contributions typically fall in the 3 stages below

If you find this introduction relevant please use the contact info for a real dialog between two human beings

Best regards
Jens Chemnitz

STRATEGY

Identify prominent drivers for change:

  • Delivery issues due to inefficient or inconsistent product data processes?
  • Quality flaws due to failed communication or documentation mismatch?
  • Shrinking margins due to exceptions, last-minute changes, unmanageable product variance ?
  • New opportunities for e.g. digital products or services?
  • …?

Example of problem statement:

”We struggle with delays and quality flaws due to the many special requirements and customized solutions”

Example of target picture:

Increase throughput by increasing the level of product standardization in sales, engineering and supply chain – from ‘engineer-to-order’ towards ‘configure-to-order’ with high level of design reuse and  automation

ARCHITECTURE

Define needed changes in process, data or systems:

  • Sharper definition of products and their variance – across sales, engineering, supply chain?
  • Transparancy in the flow of product data: Requirements, design specifications, manufacturing specs/routes?
  • Automation of design and/or hand-over to supply chain and service?
  • …?

Example of problem statement:

”We fail in bringing our product standardization to the sales agents and later we are unable to benefit from repetitive order execution”

Example of target picture:

Introduce a common definition of product variance and business/IT capabilities to support it: Product modularization, Sales tools to support/enforce the standard, data management solutions to automate design and hand-over to production and service

IMPLEMENTATION

Set actions to ensure your targets are met:

  • Avoid implementation complexity and the many pitfalls in back-end digitalization
  • Look right through the glossy sales pitch of software vendor presentations to chose the right platforms
  • Balance out function integration vs autonomy e.g. between engineering and supply chain
  • Define and measure real KPIs to trace the impact

Example of problem statement:

”The vendor sold us a vision of virtual simulation of assets in production, but our install base data is not of the sufficient quality”

Example of target picture:

Select the optimal IT platforms to support the chosen product/system varians and implement datamodels to support consistent specification and  change management across mech/elec/SW design etc. Validate a digital thread from requirements to service