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.

In principle, a 'PLM Practitioner' should be a general professional qualification that applies across the whole industry.

However, it could be that the role and skill set of a PLM Manager in a user organisation does not need to be, or should not be, the same as that for someone working for a vendor or a consultancy.

For the time being, it seems sensible to preserve these distinctions, and to start with a 'swim lane' map as below.

The mapping below is intended as an illustration for discussion purposes, rather than as an indication of intent. As yet, nothing has been decided, and we are looking for some Steering Group input to help with this.

Grades and Roles

As described in the Overview, there appear to be five potential grades of professional status, and four main types of practitioner who may wish to attain them.

The 5 potential stages, or grades, of
progression are:-

• Foundation Level
• PLM Manager
• Advanced PLM Manager / Leader
• PLM Director / VP
• Industry Fellow

The 4 main roles that might follow this
progression are:-

• PLM Manager
• PLM Supervisor
• Vendor
• Integrator / Consultant

The three primary roles (in that they act directly on the implementation) are the PLM Manager; Vendor; and Integrator/Consultant.

The way that these relate to each other may have a significant effect on the structure of any future PLM profession. The interaction is certainly fundamental to an overall level of professionalism when the parties work together.

The potential mapping is shown below.  The role of the PLM Supervisor is considered separately here.

PLM Supervisor

The PLM Supervisor needs to be trained how to understand and manage the PLM Manager or Team at a senior level, as the Team members progress through the first three levels listed above:-

• Foundation
• Practitioner
• Advanced Practitioner

In addition to this, the PLM Supervisor needs training in wider business issues such as Transformation through PLM, PLM Governance, PLM Metrics and Organisational Change.

With a range of advanced subjects in the Syllabus, it is likely that the PLM Supervisor role will also be suitable for Certification.

Add Your Input

Laying out the map of potential professional grades for PLM raises many questions that need to be answered by a representative industry forum.  For example:-

• Are these grades correct?
• Is the mapping onto the Primary Roles correct?
• Is a 'User Practitioner' the same, or different than, a 'Vendor Practitioner'?
• Should training be created for parts of the map that are currently "proprietary"?

You can let us know your views on these or any other question via profession@professionalplm.org.

Better still, why not take part in a Workshop, or join the Steering Group for the PLM Initiative?

Use the Navigation links on the left to read the whole story, then think about how it might apply to your future in PLM.

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