Creating a Profession for PLM Practitioners

The Home of Professional PLM

The PLM industry needs a recognised, worldwide professional structure for the people who work within it. The Professional PLM Initiative has been set up to fulfil this need.

The Initiative covers the whole spectrum of what it means to be 'professional' in PLM.  This will be a significant step forward, and will change the way that PLM practitioners work.

The Initiative is inclusive and interactive.  This web site shows the latest developments, and how you can get involved.

Extensive, industry-wide discussions in 2023 produced the White Paper that explains the benefits of a PLM Profession, and defines a Position Statement that can be the starting point for mobilisation.

			However, that is just a starting point.  It now needs proactive organisations to come together to decide on the next steps. If there is to be a PLM Profession, it will be global, and will therefore affect everyone. As such we need input from all parts of the industry spectrum, and as many countries as possible,

This process begins with the formation of an International Panel that will start work in the New Year and provide the initial structure and direction.

It will be supported by a Forum that is open to PLM practitioners worldwide that will meet on the same timescale and propose ideas and enhancements for the Panel to consider.

Twin-Track Process

The Panel and the Forum will be two different types of discussion that are kept separate to maintain the quality of both.

The Panel is a 'Round Table' group whose members work with each other carefully and thoroughly, in confidence and without disruption.  Their primary consideration is how establishing a profession will affect their organisations, the marketplace, and the future of the industry.  Panel members are briefed before each meeting, and the PLMIG produces an agreed Summary Document to capture progress and publicise developments to the world at large.

The Forum is an open group that can be as disruptive as it likes.  It meets after every Panel meeting to review the Summary Document, offer opinions, propose ideas and suggest improvements.  The Forum conclusions become part of the briefing for the next Panel session.

Setting Up The Panel

Thus if we form the Panel, everything else falls into place around it.  Participants from all types of organisation and any country of the world are encouraged to join (users, vendors, integrators, consultants, service providers, educational institutions).

Members will need to enrol, and any organisation can enrol up to 3 people.  The Panel will probably meet on-line, across time zones, once every four or five weeks for what may be a 60- or 90-minute session.  The meetings will be confidential, and the findings will be non-attributable.  When the Summary Documents are produced, the world will know which organisations took part, but the individuals concerned.

Full details are provided in the Datasheet.

Datasheet

			The Datasheet provides a concise explanation of the background, need, vision and benefits that underlie this new drive to explore the possibilities of a PLM Profession. There is no cost for Panel membership, and no obligation to attend a particular number of meetings.  The briefing overhead is kept to a minimum, and Members can leave at any time. The PLMIG is organising the Panel, and full details are provided on the PLMIG web site.

For more details about the Panel, the Forum, or any other aspect of Professional PLM, contact profession@professionalplm.org.

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