Keith Caserta, associate director, Healthcare R&D Information Decision Solutions, with consumer products giant Procter & Gamble Co., offers this checklist of desirable qualities that a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution vendor should have (for the record, P&G uses a solution from UGS PLM Software):
An enterprise solution
Globally scalable
Willingness to partner long-term
Leading edge and innovative
Openness to new agreements and business models
Suitability for use in a heterogeneous product environment
Bio: Jill Jusko is executive editor for IndustryWeek. She has been writing about manufacturing operations leadership for more than 20 years. Her coverage spotlights companies that are in pursuit of world-class results in quality, productivity, cost and other benchmarks by implementing the latest continuous improvement and lean/Six-Sigma strategies. Jill also coordinatesIndustryWeek’s Best Plants Awards Program, which annually salutes the leading manufacturing facilities in North America.
