Watch this presentation replay from 3D CIC 2024 below to learn how manufacturers are overcoming the digital thread myth with modern collaboration solutions that connect people and their collaborative data to form a more complete digital thread.
For decades, ERP and PLM companies have perpetuated the myth of a Digital Thread that delivers a closed-loop digital utopia, connecting product development data, digital factories, and fielded products into a single closed-loop system of bliss. This has distracted most manufacturers from the fact that these digital threads only connect systems and machines, not people and the collaborative work they do every day to deliver great products to the market. The result is that product data resides in siloed systems and proprietary formats, forcing engineering and technical teams to manually package, share and update data from one or more specialized systems. This is far from a closed-loop utopia. This more resembles a human-powered digital thread. This risks missed product delivery targets, higher scrap and rework rates, lower product quality, and a variety of unplanned manufacturing costs.