PLM vs BIM: Two Industries, One Problem — Managing Complex Product Information

Episode Summary

The episode delves into the similarities and differences between Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Building Information Modeling (BIM), focusing on how these two industries manage complex product information throughout their respective lifecycles. Hosted by Michael Finocchiaro, the podcast features Cristina Savian from VIVD and Rob Ferrone, both of whom bring extensive experience in their fields. Savian specializes in digital twins for built assets, while Ferrone focuses on PLM systems and data management across product lifecycles.

Key insights discussed include the importance of a robust data model as the foundation for effective PLM strategies, according to Rob Ferrone. He emphasizes that technology should be driven by the data model rather than the other way around, allowing for seamless integration with AI from the outset. Cristina Savian highlights the need for professionals in the construction industry to view their work not just as a job but as contributing to a larger societal purpose, encouraging them to push boundaries for safer and more sustainable infrastructure.

For PLM and engineering professionals, the key takeaway is that successful implementation of PLM requires prioritizing data management over technology. By focusing on robust data models, they can ensure smoother workflows and better integration with emerging technologies like AI, ultimately leading to improved business performance and product lifecycle outcomes.

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Full Transcript

Michael Finocchiaro

And we're live. This is Michael Finnecchiaro on the AI Across The Product Lifecycle podcast. ⁓ Freshly back from Dallas and Proofit, which was pretty eye opening on the IoT, MES side of the Today we're going to talk about BIM versus BOM. I have Cristina Savian with me, who ⁓ I met through Rob Perrone and who's someone in the construction industry for many, many years, and one of my regular panelists, of course, Rob Perrone. Rob, introduce yourself and then give us a one-sentence definition of PLM.

Rob Ferrone

Right. Okay. So lovely to be here and really happy to be here with Cristina, because I think what she's doing in that space is really exciting. So it's really cool to be able to chat and find out, you know, where things differ, where things overlap. So, yeah, my, my background is, ⁓ bills of material product data management and ultimately managing that product data across the life cycle. So. For me, the definition of product data, product life cycle management is how you steward all of your product data through the life cycle from the inception of the product itself and what that means for your business all the way through to the operation of the product in the field and then retirement. And so, ⁓ it covers not just a PLM system, but it's all of the systems involved in managing that data end to end, plus all of the people involved and all of the workflows. And then obviously the information itself and, ⁓ not just for an end in itself, but ultimately what, ⁓ that enables your business to do in terms of business performance.

Michael Finocchiaro

Sounds like you've been drinking the Brian Carroll Kool-Aid a bit. ⁓ Christine, I can tell us a bit about yourself and then give us a definition of BIM.

Rob Ferrone

You

Cristina Savian

Hey, hi everyone. Thank you for having me. So it looks like Robbie do not have to introduce myself, but I guess, you know, as you're a regular speaker. So I'm Cristina Savian. I'm based in Dubai. We've been living in Dubai for the last three years. Many have called me now these days, the queen of digital twins, at least for VIVD assets. And I kind of freaked out a little once I discovered that even ChildGPT recognized me as one of these industry experts. And finally, I've been basically entangling what this is digital twin, is definitely an evolution of BIM, what it means for our construction lifecycle. And this is an amazing opportunity because I've been talking about this concept, apply for the asset for the last eight years. I put my first publication like eight years ago. And it's a concept that comes from the product lifecycle management. But it's one of the rare opportunities where I actually have an opportunity to speak to people like you. So we can exchange insights on the product lifecycle management and what it means to apply this to the built assets and to a very, very, very unique ⁓ lifecycle, which is construction. So just to give you the definition, to be honest, it's the same for me. It's literally just lifecycle information management for built across the lifecycle. So it's really kind of like the same. Where it changes or kind of is the evolution is now when we talk about digital twins, because from ⁓ the prototype cycle management definition, which has been around for 30 years, it's come to the next step. It's not static model, but it's the virtual digital replica with a connection between the physical and the virtual. when it comes to built assets, which are one off, which are very, very, very sequential life cycle with a very ridiculous amount of people working across these stages in a sequential way, actually, especially when it comes to live connection, actually needs to be applied differently if we actually want to benefit from the concept of the digital twin. ⁓ wants to break.

Michael Finocchiaro

Thank you for that. So how did each of you end up in your respective worlds? And have you ever crossed paths professionally so far?

Rob Ferrone

So, I've, you know, I reached out to Cristina because I've, I've always, you know, I think probably about 10 years ago, I first saw her, ⁓ you know, posting one of the conferences that she was at, or I saw her talking about BMN and it resonated with me and the idea, you know, the work that I do within the product data management space and the, and the PLM space. And so, ⁓ yeah, I've been following her for a while now. And more recently, kind of took up the courage to reach out and say, hey, can we have a chat? Because I think, well, I mean, you're an impressive person. And I just thought that there's probably, you know, I just curious. I'm curious. I'm a collaborator. And I was interested in, you know, the overlap between the different kind of spaces. And ⁓ so, but my background in how I got into product data management was really, ⁓ you know, from I'm an engineer, ⁓ by study. So, ⁓ I worked as a resident engineer. ⁓ but I, I soon saw that actually there's enough people to engineer and, ⁓ fix things from the engineering perspective, but where the bottleneck was, was actually getting input, the product data, the flow through the systems, et cetera, to trigger the real world events like changes, ⁓ and, you know, part ordering, et cetera. So I made it my mission to improve that. And so I took it over, improved the flow, improved the visibility, improved the communication. And ultimately that was how I found myself in this world of product data management and product lifecycle management.

Michael Finocchiaro

Thanks for having me. Bet you, Cristina, how did you become the queen of BIM or the queen of construction digital twins?

Cristina Savian

Digital twins, no, no, no, definitely not being an expert. I just happened to work for the software house, main, ⁓ you know, mainstream, let's put it that way. But I was actually by accident in December 2018, I was living in London, I was invited to do a living in lecture, live stream recorded at UCL Bartholet. And from who doesn't know, the most important, you know. and a university for construction. And when I go invited, it's like, what can I possibly teach, you know, everyone in the room? I feel like everyone knows more than me. And it was at the back, I'm not picked up my accent. was born in Italy, been living across the world for last 23 years. But it was just after the Morandi Bridge in north of Italy collapsing. And then... At the back of that, I simply ask myself for someone that has been driving digital transformation at that time, for some infrastructure for over a decade. It's like, cannot let that happen. How did we not see that happening? I was on the bridge on the exact same day a year earlier. Anyone I would not like would have been, could have been on this bridge. My family could have been on the bridge and people died. You know, is that acceptable? So then is when I kind of rely, I kind of discovered this terminology about digital twins. There was absolutely nothing published for four bit assets. And I did what, you know, but the only thing was available. I called everyone with the gray hair and I say, what do you think this is? I put together my lecture and it was very basic and very informative. Eight years later, still available. And people find me from that. But I think the most important thing is that week was the launch of the Gemini Principles in the UK, which is a government initiative and government to embrace the digital twin concept at national level for civil infrastructure. So basically after that, everyone kind of starts reaching out and learning more about the topic. And I got caught up and then publication started. kind of everyone came to me thinking I was the expert. So I had to become the expert, but it's always been one of those, you know, like, okay, what do you, what disease and you know, so my, the definition of the type of work I do is also evolved significantly as the market has matured for the last, you know, eight years. So I kind of end up on this by accident, but you know, still with the 28 years. ⁓ know, background that now I've built into the industry.

Michael Finocchiaro

Well, since we're eventually gonna run the conversation towards AI and how AI is changing everything, like every other conversation, ⁓ AI as we know relies on data. And I think that ⁓ some of the data ⁓ is very much similar between, know, discrete manufacturing and construction. And then some of it's a lot different. I know you'd rather we talk about asset digital twins than BIM specifically, but ⁓ you know, in...

Cristina Savian

yes.

Michael Finocchiaro

Rob and I's discrete world, we think in terms of parts, assemblies, revisions and bombs. ⁓ What is the closest equivalent ⁓ for digital twins for BIM and construction? Justina. Yeah.

Cristina Savian

so you want me to start, okay. I thought you wanted that. No, that's okay. So honestly guys, I really want to know how you do this product life cycle management very well because in construction it doesn't really work very well. We might have a defined process called building information management, which is very, very difficult to apply, but basically with a lot of standards that basically tell you this is what you should do, this is how you should structure your information. And when you have people that works just with the part of the life cycle, just fulfilling the part of the contract and just basically ticking a box. Who trusts the data? And once you might want to start pulling all of this data together when it comes to actually managing this asset for hundreds of years, would you ever trust someone who had absolutely no interest in a long term? ⁓ Probably not. And I think this is the main challenge for us now. Everyone wants to embrace AI. Everyone wants... I used to say everyone used to want this Google for our building where we just query and we know everything about our asset or our infrastructure. But now we want the AI, we want the chat GPT of it. How can we trust the data? That's hallucinating. It gives us completely different answers. I've been working with some of the design engineering firms that...

Rob Ferrone

and ⁓

Cristina Savian

They are the first to start producing this data. Everyone is asking, how do we leverage AI, but the cost to trust the data, to validate the data so you can trust completely kills the benefits that you might get from it. And it's a very, very, very difficult conversation, difficult, you know, solve, different challenges.

Rob Ferrone

See you. They, Cristina, maybe those people listening, they, I don't, the pit was certainly from the bomb side. They might not be familiar with BIM and building information management. What, what, would you, how would you describe building information management? What is that information?

Cristina Savian

and go for it. Well, it's what I said, it's literally just life psycho information management. It's, you know, it's the same. ⁓

Rob Ferrone

Hmm.

Michael Finocchiaro

But what kinds of objects? You have information about the construction, the construction process, the contract.

Rob Ferrone

materials

Cristina Savian

yeah okay so let's okay so because of one specific software house they made this concept you know mainstream for everyone the majority of the people think that BIM is about creating this you know 3d fancy models which collaborative where everyone really you know collaborates and reuses we all understand we all create digital information of course we want to build visually before we build physically Basically, we can solve a lot of problems, massive, massive benefits of these days having available these tools that not only allows you to ⁓ design digitally, but still building 3D, 4D, honestly, it's endless.

Rob Ferrone

Thank

Cristina Savian

The challenge that we have is, I've coming, like, usually come across this scenario every single time, we have the CAPEX stage where we have the design and the build, and then we have OPEX, right? For hundreds and hundreds, hundreds of years. The people that work across the lifecycle don't really, really talk to each other. ⁓ And most importantly, the people from the design fairly early talked to the people at the manageration, they get appointed years and years later. So it's a massive, massive challenge that we have in managing these very, very useful and very important digital information across the lifecycle. So what happens if the contracts, because one of the biggest point of failure certainly for us is the contract. If the contract is written, you know, let's say, taking in consideration what our really digital requirements are, we might get lucky and you'll have hand over. So during design and construction, you actually ⁓ collect all of this digital information most of the time in 3D models. And of course, you should also have all the rich information about every single component. And you can go to the little detail of the lighting and the product manufacturing and who produced that and how many times it needs to maintain and everything. lot of challenges, because how can you handle so much information in one place? Very, very, very, very difficult. ⁓ Some, the digital information handover is a simple PDF. So we used to have manuals. Yeah. And how to manage the assets. Now we have PDFs. And that is the best scenario. When the contract is written, it actually says you need to hand over at a handover, you need to deliver a big model. Yeah, doesn't specify what a big model is. It doesn't even specify most of the time what should include and should not include. And most of the time, people can not even assess what you should include or shouldn't include. So it's a bit of a ticker box exercise that nobody really trusts. And how many times I spoke, I went to speak to asset management operation with the building, completed and asked, so.

Michael Finocchiaro

Mm.

Cristina Savian

What do you do about all of those 300 models? Actually, we know for a fact we're maintained during construction. And the answer is we are no engineers. We are no architects. We are just very good at managing the assets. So we have no idea. We really don't know what to do with that data. It's not in a digestible format that we can actually reuse. So what do we do? Yeah.

Michael Finocchiaro

So it sounds like there's a complete disconnect between the arc. Well, so what is the life cycle? You first have the architect that comes up with the concept, then you have what civil engineers that build the structure, other engineers that add the MEP for the plumbing and electricity. But then once you have that model, then it just gets past the general contractor and you lose complete connection back to the architect.

Cristina Savian

very, very, I still haven't come across, you If they were doing the project management, all of that side, I've seen it. It actually gets mandated and the contractor needs to update the information. So it is done. It is updated in many, many scenarios. I've seen it. is actually, there is a process to ensure that this information is updated because as we know, the build is always different from the time for many, many reasons. where I've always seen it up to now, seen it failing is during the handover. Also because most of the time is we're talking about information that actually during after handover, they're not really that important. And in many scenarios, and also you need to understand, we need to use this digital information, wherever you call it digital twin, wherever you call it being modeled to, and the only purpose for these digital replicas and digital, it's to manage our assets more efficiently. But it needs to give us a return of investment. can't just have a lot of digital data that doesn't, it's not useful. So what happens is, you actually realize soon enough that there is too much digital data collected. That actually, if we only really care about a very small subset, then we'll really drive after. And... you know, I might be more useful and you might be able to just trust the information. And every single time around the scenarios of just let's have a look of what digital information is useful. After asset management operation for many, many, many scenarios, 3D model is no interest. The 3D geographic information is not the most important data. There is many more other data sets that are much more important because it's just a fact. The costs associated with trying to maintain these models perhaps is not justifiable. Perhaps we need to find a better way. Of course, the life cycles and the tools and all these products that are available on the market are going to improve. I don't know what it looks like from the PLM perspective. But for us, it's a ridiculous amount of point products. We're very challenging to make them talk to each other and very challenging to have a seamless data information, know, handover ⁓ between products and systems. And this is, we don't know what is going to be available in hundreds of years. So we also need to build something, you know, that is digestible from future systems.

Michael Finocchiaro

Well. So it sounds like the construction industry faces a lot of the issues we have in digital threads, Rob, in terms of and engineers dealing with 3D models and 3D simulations and manufacturing dealing more with time series databases and so forth, right?

Cristina Savian

No, you tell me which one. What problems do you have?

Rob Ferrone

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just listening to you describe the situation, Cristina, is making me think about the complexities when you're collaborating across ecosystems where not everyone works for the same company. the people, the architect firm and the developer might be different from the contractor that executes the work, who's then different to the company that maintains the building. And they probably all have different systems, different processes. you know, the teams are kind of separately managed. So I imagine that's one of the big challenges, you know, when you've got a big aerospace company where the ecosystem is almost contained, where, you know, the suppliers are ⁓ forced to work in the same systems as the OEM.

Michael Finocchiaro

Yes and no, but those suppliers are working for competitive OEMs. And also you have ⁓ the operators of the airplanes are still connected because more so than an HTE or other fields. It seems to me that construction sounds like a kind of a configure to an engineer to order in our world, right? Where you build this product, each product is completely different with a serial number. And for change management, have to monitor those. in operation things like airplanes because they've got a 30 year lifespan and we've got to maintain the data in case something goes wrong. That's what I don't know. What do you think? Do you think it's sort of similar to engineer to order?

Rob Ferrone

Well, that's what I think the interesting thing, crossover comes because I believe, you know, each building is unique. mean, where I live, for example, there were, I don't know, they built 30 houses at the same time, but they're all, maybe of those 30 houses, you maybe had six different types of houses, the house, you know, that you'd have theoretically, the houses should be the same, but every single one differs slightly. Not just because the you know, the owners have configured the houses and put walls in different places. even as the development went on, they found that, you know, certain things didn't work. And so in the next house, they improved it. even in situations where you're not doing one-off buildings, but you're doing duplication, there's differences. But yeah, I think the interesting part is the crossover when you start to look at things like modular housing. and you want to do configurable developments and products, then that's where I see a lot of crossover to the BOM and the PLM world. So you've got product in parallel with project and program.

Cristina Savian

modular construction is definitely where the crossover of our world is but I think we are still kind of far away from you know achieving that and as we know we had some amazing efforts what we you know seen what MACE has been doing in the UK here we have amazing factories in UAE

Michael Finocchiaro

Cristina?

Cristina Savian

⁓ They just build as much as possible offsite and bring it to site. And of course, it tends to be similar. So some amazing examples, I spent over 40 years in Australia, same. ⁓ But we are still very far away. We also need to accept the same building 10 meters down the line. It's a completely different building. Our products are unique. It's not the same as for you that you can actually replicate the same and improve the product.

Rob Ferrone

you Thank

Michael Finocchiaro

So.

Rob Ferrone

Yeah.

Michael Finocchiaro

Cristina, if I dropped a PLM architect into a construction company, into a BIM organization, what would they get wrong about the structure and governance in the first 30 days?

Cristina Savian

So if you drop a PLM consultant into, I don't know because obviously I don't know what a PLM consultant does, but probably I can tell you the biggest challenges of people that don't come into the industry. Because once you build your knowledge in the construction life cycle and actually how it works, you stick to it because that's really, it's your asset and your competitive advantage.

Michael Finocchiaro

or architect into a BIM organization into a construction company. What would they get wrong?

Cristina Savian

The biggest challenge that people find when they move to construction is understand this very, very unique sequential life cycle, which is at the base of our society, with an underlying procurement model, they will never really change. And the way we're procuring assets, it's the same. It's always been the same. Is it efficient? Probably not. So many attempts, I've been trying to change that and it's difficult why the contracts are, it's also very, very risk adverse ⁓ industry. If something is untested, it, are people gonna die? People think, how is it possible the construction is the least digitized industry in the society? Try to bring anything in and trying to pass years and years of testing where you can try and one, And then by the time you tested something, you need to move to another construction site, then you move to another construction site, then you move to another construction site. And different settings, and sometimes you can even validate that it's actually safe. So what would they written wrong? Probably the challenges of managing a product. It's always different each individual time and always unique.

Michael Finocchiaro

There's a question in the chat. Maybe this is a good one for Rob.

Cristina Savian

Yes, go for it! How many people do we have? I cannot even see.

Michael Finocchiaro

13, about 13, 14. So, Sushil Kamar, who apparently eats, sleeps, and IP repeats, that's his profile, asked, what is the one thing PLM could realistically adopt from BIM in order to prove how it handles complex assemblies?

Cristina Savian

Okay, great, amazing.

Rob Ferrone

Well, the thing that I am most interested in about the BIM world and Cristina's world is the ⁓ idea that you have to operate these ⁓ assets for years. Cristina mentioned, whether it's hundreds of years or 30 years, I don't know. I guess it differs by buildings, but in many of the companies I've worked in, ⁓ the products tended to be, you know, once they were built and sold to the customer, they were at best serviced, but ultimately the, you know, the product was out of the ecosystem and no one really cared about it. But these days, you know, with things like, you know, mobility and, ⁓ up, uptime, et cetera, where you want to keep the products operating, you know, I mean, that that's standard business in aerospace. I think that's the most interesting part is, is how do you, ⁓ ⁓ in asset management and keeping a record of all the changes that you're doing to that object over time. ⁓ And so that you can always go back to it and know.

Cristina Savian

You don't think that I could. It's simple. know, people think actually that these buildings have amazing, know, sophisticated systems. I live in one of the most iconic TAMAC towers in Dubai. The entire asset management system is WhatsApp.

Rob Ferrone

So you're saying that they, so how does that work then? is it any given time the only way they can tell what is in a building is if they go in and look and check and.

Cristina Savian

They do, of course, actually, they actually digitize, regularly get invited for my maintenance, and they actually check regularly all the system, make sure everything runs smoothly, too. Obviously, they do maintenance, so they actually, of course, have schedules and everything. But so much more could be done. It's, you know, one of the challenges I was talking to this the other day is most of the buildings here in Dubai are branded. So I live in a design at like Fendi Tower. ⁓ It's a few years old. ⁓ There is no... There's just no provision for anything that is going to break and needs to be replaced, which means when it breaks, is not, you know, substituted. So soon enough, these towers will look different because you're going to start replacing different parts and you cannot really do the same. And we have one very important tower here next door where the ⁓ window systems that they used. the company went bankrupt, ⁓ they keep breaking down, it's absolutely impossible and the cost to even use them, some of the flats can no longer go outside to the balcony and the cost of changing that, it's ridiculous. Could this be avoided? Probably by understanding and maybe keeping this information or understanding this information from the design and the termination. But this is also the thing, probably it looks really great and we do need new, new systems like all the time, right? But something went wrong and these are the challenges that all the times we see. They completely change now. They're changing for each floor, it's 84 floors and they keep it regular in seven years and they're changing completely their conditioning system and then they have to redo the entire types. seven years ago. How is that possible that after only few years we have to replace so many of them? So there is so much they could have done, you know, prevented earlier, but you can understand it's very, very, very, very difficult. And most of time, need to acquire this information. The people that manage the building are just very good at managing the building because that's what they do when they get the contract. And it's like, very good at managing this. And they do the best and use their systems and what they are. comfortable and what they trust.

Rob Ferrone

I get a certain amount of incentivization as well. So it's like the person that designed the building and then you've got the person that built it and you've got the person that services it. They've all got slightly different incentives and business models. I get it. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Finocchiaro

So Christine.

Cristina Savian

Everyone is fulfilling their contract. Everyone is doing a very good job of fulfilling the contract. And when you start to understand now construction is lowest profit margin in history, you start to understand why often they're just trying to tick the box and guess that the contract fulfilled and they're like, well, our job is done. We're just going to design the next thing after. same thing for maintenance you know i have a lot of friends they say great i want to buy and now i'll be living in dubai for a years it was like it all depends on the maintenance company we had a building here going on fire and you know just over the summer why bad maintenance maintenance contract change quality and safety of the building went down

Michael Finocchiaro

So there was another question in the chat from our friend, Rob, Mr. Dr. Hilberg, who asked about, what do do about existing infrastructure, Cristina? Is there a role for BIM to come into an existing building, like a refit?

Rob Ferrone

Okay.

Cristina Savian

Building is not infrastructure, you Civil infrastructure.

Michael Finocchiaro

A building? Yeah, does BIM have a role in a hundred year old building? So, you know, obviously not in Dubai because there's nothing more than three years old, but...

Cristina Savian

Yeah, no, no. so most of the time, so it's a slightly different, you know, process, I will say, there is a lot of retrofit use cases, which you go there and you try to capture the digital information. And I think one definitely ⁓ one of the most iconic one where they use the most advanced, you know, digital capture and everything is for Notre Dame, you know, in Paris, right? Exactly.

Michael Finocchiaro

I was going to say Notre Dame.

Cristina Savian

So probably is the, I would say most, you have a very, very, very old building and let's be honest that the original documents are drawings, right? Even if it was digitized at some point for some use cases, it needs to be recaptured again. So you immediately understand that you can capture all this digital information and most of the time is about trying to find the right balance from. capturing all this digital information and the benefits that you can get from digital information. So you don't spend too much creating, analyzing and building this digital replica that doesn't really provide enough value for you. And in my case, because I only really mostly work on digital input with assets every single time the digital twin ⁓ initiative fail is because they... of the underestimated how much it's going to cost to build. And they didn't build our business case efficiently and properly to understand what is the value that we want to guess. If the value is 100, we can only really afford to spend 10 and 20 and immediately detects type of... how you're to capture the cost of very detailed information. It has a completely different cost, depending on what basically you can afford. so, and this is the, I think is the overlapping, the of the interesting part where the PLM definition, the digital twin, which the physical and the digital and the live connection between the two, for us they actually,

Rob Ferrone

you

Cristina Savian

been transformed and kind of evolved and now we only really look at the two concepts which is the level of fidelity and frequency. So the fidelity is what the level of quality that you can afford that you can justify and what is the frequency and it's not about the IOT sensor because it is very expensive and really only justified in a few ⁓ use cases but it's about Sometimes maybe updating every month is enough because that's always justifiable. So it's a slightly different evolution of this concept of life when it comes to build assets.

Michael Finocchiaro

So, ⁓ kept pointing out that you've got all these manual processes and it's almost all WhatsApp managed. I alluded to this earlier. ⁓

Cristina Savian

No, they do have a bit of systems behind, but what I'm saying is it's a lot.

Michael Finocchiaro

I know. So I was gonna ask Rob, like, and I think we face, as I alluded to at the beginning, the same problem where you've got these two enormous magnets, PLM on one side, ERP on the other, that both think they own what we call in our industry, the bomb. Why do you think we haven't come to some, is that the reason why almost all real e-bomb to embalm conversion is still done in Excel is because we've done a terrible job ⁓ making systems that are usable by humans and they're just so hideous that excels easier? Or is it because we really do have two different sources of the truth and trying to mitigate between them has been difficult?

Rob Ferrone

Well, I mean, first of all, I'd argue against there being PLM in ARP. I think ERP sits within PLM. If you're assuming that PLM is not just a PLM system, but it's the actual discipline of managing product information across the life cycle. yeah, before I talk about the challenges between the different, the bombs, if you like. Just two points to ⁓ topics that Cristina raised. One of them I found really interesting is the cost of doing PLM. So like Cristina said, you know, there's a, there's a cost associated with maintaining the data and you have to look at the business case for doing it. found that really interesting. And I think that's the same for many companies because often companies think about, you know, implementing PLM, et cetera, but actually maybe, you know, PDM is enough for them. So I think that's that, you know, published a couple of articles about the idea of cost to P cost of doing PLM. Obviously there's a cost for not doing PLM, but I think that's an important factor. And the other thing I was interested in is the feedback loop. And maybe we can talk about that later. The idea that, you know, these buildings in operation, does any of that feedback on the, on the failure modes gets, you know, put back into the, ⁓ the ⁓ design of buildings and Maybe I can infer that by looking at Cristina's face, anyway, to your point, Michael, mean, the information between systems is a challenge because everyone wants something different from the information. And maybe this links to BIM quite nicely is that there's almost, if you think about all of the product information that flows across the life cycle, we're familiar with 150 % bombs. where especially we've got configurations, but ultimately, if you think about the entirety of the master product data, maybe a portion of that sits within, it's like the Venn diagrams. So some of it would be common to everything. Maybe that's the part number. Some of it will be specific to manufacturing. Some of it will be specific to engineering. Some of it will be specific to purchasing. And so not everyone needs all of the information. And so that's why you have these kind of different bomb views. And I think the challenge comes from everyone needing their own slightly different perspective and they need the information in their own way. And most of the time in companies, you don't have anyone owning that product data flow architecture. I'm not talking about the IT architecture or the technology architecture, but really the you know, which information flows to which group of people in which format and how do you translate because everyone's in their silo and saying we're engineering. Okay. So we're to throw things over the fence to you manufacturing. Good luck, you know, manufacturing then like, Hey, you know, we, we'd need it a different format or you haven't given us this information. we're going to, you know, create our own information. And that's, know, because there's not a single owner, there's that's where you get these kinds of failure modes and silos. ⁓ but anyway, yeah.

Cristina Savian

It's the same for us. And if you think about it, this is also where, well, actually, I don't know if it's the same. Do you have all the software vendors that are trying to be capturing all of this data across the life cycle? Say, don't worry, we are going to keep being the owner of this data. Hold on. Wow. This is risky. They own your own data.

Rob Ferrone

That sounds familiar. Mm.

Cristina Savian

So this is also a big challenge, right? we can have, know, the technology now is advanced enough that allows us to collect all this information, maintain them in system and over across different people, have different views. We need the same. The executive doesn't want to know the details. He just wants to know the numbers, right? And how much was maintained, how much was not maintained, and, you know, when is the next. where do I save money? Why am I spending too much? And the person on the ground needs to know if it needs to go on the third floor, on the fifth floor, what needs to be done this week? And where is the point of failure and the systems, you know, and so on. And at the moment, there is no someone appointed that should look after and ensure that this data, you know, is maintained across the lifecycle. Now there are, ⁓ maybe it's because of slightly different setting. But here in UAE, we have developers that they own the buildings forever. And they just appoint someone to sign it, to do it, to maintain it. So lately there has been actually a great effort. actually they say, no, no, no, we want to own the data now. We want to own it from the beginning. And we want to own it for the foreseeable future. So there are some developers that actually build their own in-house product. to collect this information because obviously the big builders and developers, they can afford the cost. Is it used? No, yet. Because I think most of the time we forget we're all people and we are very imperfect human being and we're not perfect, right? Which means feedback loop, collecting information, saving, always it's just... It's never perfect, right? And this is a challenge.

Rob Ferrone

you

Michael Finocchiaro

So you referred a little bit to the data. I find it interesting that the, well, I believe that Revit is the most common format in your world, right? I mean, that's what everybody uses, right? Revit, isn't that the most common? No? Okay. That's what I was talking about. So for buildings, it's Revit, right? It's bigger than Autodesk, bigger than Bentley. Isn't Revit the right format?

Cristina Savian

No, I actually disagree. Maybe for billings, but it's okay. Definitely not. Yeah, but then, you know, we have other soft towers now they are looking, you know, for alternatives and a lot of other softer, you know,

Michael Finocchiaro

Okay, my point is what's interesting is that Revit was created by guys that left PTC, which was one of the first CAD products that actually came out of the mechanical world, ⁓ the Revit standard. ⁓ What are the other... And in the PLM world, we have three primary players that are both CAD and PLM vendors who produce both the 3D model and the management. We have Siemens, PTC, and Daso. In the BIM world, the construction world, I know you've got Autodesk and Bentley, but also Trimble and Nemechek. Are they all equally big or is one predominant and the other ones are much smaller? In our world, it's Zman's DS at the top.

Cristina Savian

I think it really depends on... There is a lot. I also worked with Glockdon in China. So I think we also need to understand what part of the world we're looking at. yes, maybe in the Western world, definitely we have a lot of people using auto-desk products. Archicads and other alternatives have been increasing their market share.

Michael Finocchiaro

Mm-hmm.

Cristina Savian

There is definitely a talk just this morning with the biggest distributor here in GCC. And they're actually seeing now a massive request for alternatives, much, much cheaper alternatives.

Michael Finocchiaro

So why haven't we seen more consolidation because the needs are so different across geographies and across building types?

Cristina Savian

It's not consolidation. think you need to train into the product. So most of the people they stick and they build entire career with whatever Autodesk or whatever Nemechek and you rarely see a switch. You rarely see someone trying to switch into one product. We also have the new ⁓ students and new coming out in the market. They actually say, why are we using this? There is a much better product. that is available because they don't actually understand the challenges. I don't know if it's the same for PLM, but one of the biggest challenges that we have is because of this life cycle is very long, because there is so many, it's very long term. It's most of the time these alternative products, which are much, much, much better and much more effective and productive, these companies don't have the balance sheet to be procured in big projects. because nobody knows if they're going to be around a few years, which is also the reason why we're coming to this law innovation in the construction industry. So I think we also have open beam standards. So we have an ABC format. Technically, you can use any products and then making sure there is interoperability ⁓ across the different products, but it's not used and people are not really using that. For one thing for sure, at least from what I can see, things are gonna change because we can see this new trend where maybe people like us, and I'm feeling 47 years old, so I started from the drawing board, okay? I still remember my father buying my first drawing board. But we are more... For us, the big brands, the big software houses, they're part of our culture. We go for the biggest and the best and the very established products.

Michael Finocchiaro

No braver get fired for buying IBM kind of mentality,

Cristina Savian

The younger generation don't. They switch. don't understand why we go for the big brands. They just have a different mindset, but there is a better product. They are more used to switch between products. how many times? And I teach in Hong Kong. I've been teaching in Hong Kong for the last three years, technology and the innovation model. I still don't know why. aware. I qualify to teach, but I've a, I could start it as an occasional. guest lecturing actually became an informalized ⁓ course. And it's interesting because they teach master students, so they already went to start working in the market and then they kind of went back to study. they are like, why they're teaching us something they actually think that it's so advanced and all new things. And then we go back and we start working and it's like 20 years behind. and they don't understand why nothing is advancing as fast as our world, right? And it's just very challenging. It's the way how the industry has evolved. But it's like anything. We now, I think we reached, I think for construction, the flat bottom. Honestly, nobody's really making money. In many countries, people don't make money anymore in building things. We already know how tender and forbig.

Rob Ferrone

Yeah.

Cristina Savian

stadiums or anything, how many companies go for it? How many? We know that the company building and the, not designing, building, no, was building. Our museum of future here went bankrupt. So we know that the challenges of doing it wrong, right? So we have to do better. Innovation, we need to innovate. We need to reduce and we need to make it more efficient. But it's a challenging industry. But it's the base of our society, so we have to fix this problem. We all need buildings, we all need safe infrastructure, so we need to do it.

Rob Ferrone

I've got a question. How much of this do you think is, if the majority of building work is manual, ⁓ how do you think that's going to change when you start to have more machine built ⁓ buildings? Do you think that's going to be the big difference?

Cristina Savian

I don't know. I mean, I think he's like anything part will be there is three different treated houses now. Right. How many we know we just talked about how now modern construction for many, standardized, especially for bathrooms and for all of these, you know, key rooms, it's much, much easier, right, to build and then you fix them on site and everything. But there is still a lot of manual work. How are we going to trust just to build, you know, robots? just build everything, we're just we're also adding a very different layer of complexity of all the people behind those systems, right?

Rob Ferrone

Yeah.

Michael Finocchiaro

⁓ Rob, do you see a convergence coming between PLM and BIM thinking, especially if you look at industrial facilities and infrastructure in the built environment for manufacturing assets?

Rob Ferrone

I think so because Cristina said that this is that's why I asked the question because if if the building industry is struggling in it and it's not sustainable in the current form, perhaps the way to go forward is to industrialize. know, when you think about it, really, does everyone need a unique house? You know, why can't we all have the same kind of house?

Cristina Savian

⁓ Okay. Do you really want to live in the same house as everyone else?

Rob Ferrone

Yeah, I don't care what it looks like really, as long as it's functional and you can have different variations of it. mean, there are only dwellings really, aren't they? know, yeah. ⁓

Cristina Savian

No, I don't think we'll ever change. I'll just tell you something, the developers here are building hundreds of houses exactly the same and people hate them.

Rob Ferrone

OK.

Cristina Savian

I mean, because literally you go there and it's impossible because they all look at the same. But then is when you start seeing immediately as soon as moving the personalization of the house, right? Because everyone wants his own personality into it. And also the taste, the culture are very different, you same house, you know, inside. And if he was, you know, someone, you know, local, it's a completely different looking house than, you know, someone coming from the Western world.

Rob Ferrone

Hmm.

Cristina Savian

What I'm saying is, it's, I don't know, I don't think we will ever change that. And also companies compete on the design. had the honor to work with Buro Apple for three years. They designed the most iconic facades, know, the building facades in the world. ⁓ They do all these unique things and there is only just growing demand because everyone wants to build the different thing, the different tower and there is a lot of competition on building something that is better. So, I don't know.

Rob Ferrone

Hmm. Well, I know from our industry, the trend is, you know, people are trying to get away from engineer to order and they'd love to do more configuration to order. And yeah, so I just wonder if that's eventually where the construction just your girl, obviously, you know, unique things like bridges and you know, where that might be harder to do. But again, even with bridges, I'm guessing, you know, you're the expert, but you know, you have spans and you know, so that maybe they can be configured.

Cristina Savian

They are just building a massive bridge here in the harbour. You also need to understand the bridge that gets built here is 10 times faster than everyone else. Why? 24 hours construction, cheap labour and when they need to get stuff done, they get it done. I was born in a country where we've been designing these three kilometres...

Rob Ferrone

Yeah. ⁓ But I guess that that

Michael Finocchiaro

the bridge between Messina and Reggio Calabra. I think there's other problems with that bridge. They're completely political, but yeah, it's been a long one. We only got seven minutes left. I wanted to ask one question just on, because I've been really passionate about startups the last year or so. In the BIM industry, if I combine all aspects of that and BIM, I have 67.

Cristina Savian

I mean, how many? It's political, Exactly. of red. Yeah.

Michael Finocchiaro

Startups that I'm tracking you were saying Cristina that the younger people coming in Look at the tool set and say this is garbage. I don't want to use this. So do you think that some of these ⁓ some of these startups like Zinni sis or hyper or airworks or ⁓ a conic do you think that they have an a chance to maybe ⁓ Modernize or do you think that it's just so fragmented? It's gonna be an uphill battle either way

Cristina Savian

no. No, it's definitely I've been helping startups breaking the market for years and years now. We desperately need new technology. The challenge that we have is the long term vision for them is they need to be acquired, you know, to survive long term. Yes, because they will be then ensuring the long term existence of the product.

Michael Finocchiaro

Okay, by Nimitz check or Autodesk? Because buildings last a long time, that kind of logic.

Cristina Savian

Yeah, because they did. Especially when you start going to Saudi and some of these massive developments, can't afford to go to. They need established products. They've been testing in the market for many, many years. ⁓ And with very established companies that they can offer 24-7, service level. It's different, right? And there are ways to de-risk these startups. I can tell you there is a hundred, my list is hundreds and hundreds of that. So you can actually, there are a few places where you can find them. But it's, as I said, they definitely have an opportunity. They should keep working on it. They are not as, unfortunately, one of the big challenges is often they try to find a way to grow organically rather than raising money because raising money is expensive, very expensive. And the return of investment for construction, it's challenging. So they can keep doing it. can keep, know, sometimes often they start providing services as they build the products and they start establishing to the market that are way to the risk. ⁓ They're, you know, for making sure they can be acquired, but definitely 100%. It's the success is dictated on how well they are in capturing the replacement of their product with the right. with that workflow, the part of workflow where they're replacing and making sure they are capturing the client, the project at the right time. Because when it's project to project, you can't just switch at any time. You have to switch in a particular moment when it's the right moment.

Michael Finocchiaro

So I have one last question for each of you. I'll start with Rob. What's the one thing ⁓ that we're gonna have to change over the next five years for NPLM?

Rob Ferrone

Just one thing. So for me, the fundamental thing that people have to change in PLM is to be thinking more about ⁓ the data model, you know, and having that as the thing that is driving all of the work. then finally, rather than starting with the technology and working backwards,

Michael Finocchiaro

Just pick one.

Rob Ferrone

You got to start with the data model and then eventually end up with the technology solution, whether that's graph or federated systems.

Michael Finocchiaro

And that way you have the AI from the beginning. And Cristina, what would you change in the construction industry? What's the one thing you would want to change?

Rob Ferrone

Yeah.

Cristina Savian

would love to... Across the night cycle, is ridiculous amount of very passionate people, passionate profession, they really, really love the industry. But sometimes I think they forget that there is a bigger purpose to what they do. It's not just a job. It's an industry which has the base of our society. So, and it's struggling. So each one of us can change the industry if we all really go. a tiny bit more make an effort and was like, actually I want a better building, safer building. I want a safer infrastructure for my kids and for my grandkids. So how about I push the boundaries now so they can have a better future.

Michael Finocchiaro

That's great. Well, thank you for both of your time. I appreciate it. It was good talking to you both again. And next week, I've got a couple more startups. we've got two podcasts next week with startups. And I hope maybe we can come back in a couple of months and revisit the question with Christine and Rob.

Cristina Savian

Thank you. ⁓ 100%.

Rob Ferrone

Yeah.

Cristina Savian

Thank you so much for having me.

Rob Ferrone

Thanks Cristina for educating us.

Michael Finocchiaro

It's been a pleasure.

Cristina Savian

Bye bye.

Michael Finocchiaro

Okay, thank you. Okay.