How to Improve Cross-Functional Collaboration With PLM

When your organization is growing, that’s almost always a sure sign that business is going well. You’ve worked hard to get to a point where you have many departments and teams working together toward a common goal. But, when your business becomes complex, it’s easy to get bogged down with data silos and organizational roadblocks.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) software is a solution for scaling businesses, as it collects data for each product you’ve created and makes it available on one platform that every stakeholder can access. Integrating PLM solutions into your business simplifies cross-functional collaboration between departments. Here’s how you can benefit from your own PLM platform.

Select Leaders to Champion PLM Solutions

Getting employees to buy into working with a new system is one of the first challenges you’ll face when working to improve collaboration across departments with a PLM platform. Your team members may be slow to change their habits or skeptical of a new technology solution. Make sure each department has a PLM liaison to help you coordinate integration.

Together, these leaders can make it their goal to eliminate silos from the top. The faster you can convince your teams to buy into the ability of PLM software to make their jobs easier, the faster you can improve cross-functional collaboration.

Encourage the Creation of Cross-Functional Teams

Once your team members have bought into the value of PLM software, it’s time to promote cross-functional teams to maximize this advantage. For example, one cross-functional team can be dedicated to aligning sales and marketing messaging with the actual specifications and utility of a product. This cross-functional team can meet intermittently during development and production to keep messaging on point.

Every member of your cross-functional team has access to all of the details, updates, and modifications that have been added to the PLM system since the product was first conceived. This means everyone feels like they played a role in the project and everyone is on equal footing. It’s no longer about obtaining data from other departments, it’s about working together to use data to make better decisions.

Give Your Teams Multiple Platforms to Communicate

If the only way to use a PLM platform is by sitting down at a desktop computer and logging in, it’s unlikely to be a popular communication tool in this day and age. While it might work for people in an office, factory managers and other on-site stakeholders simply wouldn’t use PLM solutions as much.

Revalize PLM can be accessed from a smartphone, tablet, desktop, or laptop. Using a PLM solution that’s accessible for all teams is a key factor in improving cross-functional collaboration because it puts everyone on equal footing, whether they’re at the office or on the production floor.

Work PLM Solutions Into Existing Systems

People love familiarity. There’s a reason some of the most well known social media platforms have been around for about a decade now. If you’re comfortable with one communication method, you’re likely to stick to it. That’s why it’s important to remember that not every system requires a complete overhaul when implementing PLM software.

Some companies will want to keep their existing project management or ERP systems, and that’s just fine. PLM solutions expertly combine these systems, integrating their functionality into a single, collaborative platform so you can have the best of both worlds — a familiar workspace in a collaborative environment.
Want to see how PLM solutions can bring your company together to maximize innovation and productivity? Contact a Revalize representative about setting up a demo of our products for your team.
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