Oxford, England. February 08, 2012

When Knorr-Bremse decided in 2011 it wanted a comprehensive benchmark of its PLM operations, it seemed an ambitious idea. Knorr-Bremse is the world's leading manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles, and has been implementing enterprise-wide PLM for over a decade. With around $5bn sales, 16000 employees, and operating in almost 30 countries, the scale of a PLM Governance Benchmark is challenging.

However, Knorr-Bremse was also one of the first corporate members of the PLM Interest Group, and contributed to the development of the PLM Benchmarking Handbook in 2004. With the subsequent development of tools for PLM Self-Assesmment, and the recently-published PLM Governance Standard, the working material now exists to make this possible.

Discussions in December and January have confirmed the Governance Benchmark structure, and Knorr-Bremse will host a stand-alone Benchmark Coaching workshop at their headquarters in Munich in February or early March to confirm the scope and details.

This will be an international benchmark, on a scale and depth of detail that has never been done before in PLM. It is an opportunity for major international companies to quantify the strengths and weaknesses within their PLM landscape. As well as generating new PLM metrics and ROI tools, the collaboration will provide detailed sharing of PLM techniques and practices amongst the participating companies.

Companies based anywhere in the world are welcome to take part, and participation is being arranged now. Full details are available on the PLMIG web site or by contacting Roger Tempest at Email Contact.

The PLM Interest Group
The PLM Interest Group is the leading neutral industry group for PLM. It is developing a new generation of applied PLM standards including the PLM Best Practice Library and the Path to PLM, and has previously run workshops that have produced the PLM Benchmarking Handbook; the PLM-SCM Guidebook; and the PLM Maturity Reference Manual.

For more information, please contact:
Roger Tempest
PLMIG