Episode 105: Product Lifecycle Management's Momentum in Manufacturing with Jim Heppelmann

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is "Product Lifecycle Management's Momentum in Manufacturing." Our guest is Jim Heppelmann, CEO of PTC (https://www.ptc.com/). In this conversation, we talk about the why and the how of product lifecycle management's momentum in manufacturing. If you like this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). If you like this episode, you might also like Episode 93: Industry 4.0 Tools (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/93). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: The momentum is clear, and one indication is the trend that PLM is being elevated to an enterprise system. But why is PLM such a hot market right now? One key word is greenhouse gas reduction because companies need a system of record to track their emissions, and this is not easy to do without a system in place. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented brings industrial conversations that matter, serving up the most relevant conversations on industrial tech. Our vision is a world where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is Product Lifecycle Management's Momentum in Manufacturing. Our guest is Jim Heppelmann, CEO of PTC. In this conversation, we talk about the why and the how of product lifecycle management's momentum in manufacturing. Augmented serves an audience of executives, industry leaders, investors, founders, educators, technologists, academics, process engineers, and shop floor operators across the emerging field of frontline operation. And it's hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. Jim, welcome to the show. How are you? JIM: I'm great, Trond. Great to be with you here this morning. TROND: Yeah, Jim. I thought we would talk a little bit about industrial automation and some specifics. But first of all, I wanted to talk a little bit about you. You grew up in Minnesota, got yourself a mechanical engineering degree, and became an entrepreneur, and sold your company to PTC. You were the CTO, I guess, for a while and now the CEO. It's been quite a journey. JIM: Yeah, it's fun. And by the way, industrial automation and related topics is my favorite topic. I was born on a dairy farm in Southeastern Minnesota, part of a very large family. It was a tough life. We never quite had enough money. So I was ambitious. I wanted to do something. I wanted to have a better life than I grew up with, not that it was bad, but maybe I wanted to have a little bit more economic security. I decided to become an engineer because I had spent a lot of time with equipment, machines, using them but also fixing them, taking them apart, putting them back together. I was good at math and science. So I went into mechanical engineering, but right away, I was drawn to software. And so I really got a major in mechanical engineering, a minor in computer science, and focused on how do you use computer science to do engineering? That led me to join a computer-aided design company, a CAD company. As an intern, I was assigned to a new idea they had which they called product data management. It was not very glamorous compared to the graphics of CAD, where you could twirl models around on the screen and so forth. So it's the kind of thing that you assigned to a new intern. As an intern, I took to it; I mean, it made a lot of sense to me. So basically, that's what I specialized in in my career, especially the early part of my career. And I became quite an expert at PLM, or at