Modular Management

𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿. You'd assume the companies struggling most with product configuration have messy, "unmodular" products. Tangled designs, no clear structure, everything custom. Often it's the opposite. We worked with a client whose product was genuinely modular, with real configurability built in. And they still had a maintenance nightmare: engineers buried in specification documents, bottlenecked launches, a configurator that couldn't keep up. The product wasn't the problem. The module boundaries were drawn at the wrong level. Too fine grained, and every configuration touches dozens of tiny modules, multiplying the documentation and rules that need maintaining. Too coarse, and you lose the flexibility that made modularity worth doing in the first place. Somewhere in between is a level that's genuinely maintainable, and most companies never deliberately choose it. It just accumulates from years of incremental decisions. Getting the level right isn't a redesign. It's a restructuring of how the existing modules are organized and represented, what we call the product master. Worth reading if your configurator feels harder to maintain than it should, even though the underlying product is reasonably well designed: https://hubs.la/Q04qf8KG0 #Manufacturing #ProductConfiguration #Modularization

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝘁. Semiconductor shortage. Suez Canal blockage. Energy crisis. Tariffs imposed, struck down, and reimposed under new legal authorities. Another wave landing this week. Every few months there's a new shock. Most manufacturers spend the year absorbing them — reworking BOMs, requalifying suppliers, redesigning products around whatever just changed. A smaller group doesn't. They pivot faster because they were built to. Their product architecture, supply chain, and manufacturing footprint were designed to be recombined, not rebuilt. When a supplier gets tariffed, they swap the module. When a market shifts, they reconfigure the offering. When a new regulation lands, they adapt without starting over. We call this composability. And it's the reason some companies outperform in disruption while their competitors are still writing the change memo. Composability isn't a product feature. It's a business posture — modular products, modular supply, modular manufacturing. Each layer designed to be pulled apart and put back together with the pieces that still work. If you want the full argument, including why "diversify your suppliers" isn't enough on its own: https://hubs.ly/Q04q55pr0 #Manufacturing #ProductArchitecture #Modularization #Composability

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗲𝗻𝗱❓𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁. Last week we wrote about how front-end (sales) and back-end (engineering, BOM creation) misalignment is where most avoidable product complexity hides. The natural follow-up: how do you tell where you actually are? We put together a Navigator that walks through the combinations of front-end and back-end operating models — product-based, configuration-based, project-based on one axis, and how BOMs actually get created on the other. It surfaces: ◼️ Which combination you're operating in today ◼️ What challenges that combination typically generates ◼️ Where the highest-leverage improvements tend to live Quiet weeks are a good time to actually look at this. Most operations teams know something's off — the Navigator helps put a name to it. https://hubs.la/Q04mv1DK0 #Manufacturing #ProductConfiguration #Modularization

🤝 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲. The way you sell your products and the way you build them aren't separate decisions. They're one decision. When the front end (how customers buy) and the back end (how the BOM gets created) don't align, you carry product-level complexity you didn't choose. Standard products being sold like configurable ones. Configured products being engineered like one-offs. Project-based deliveries copying old BOMs that have obsolete parts in them. It's where most of the avoidable complexity in a product business actually lives, not in the products themselves, but in the mismatch between how they're sold and how they're built. Worth a read if you've ever wondered why your product portfolio feels harder to manage than it should: https://hubs.la/Q04mtY9c0 #Manufacturing #ProductConfiguration #Modularization

🇯🇵 Japanese 今年5月、欧州・北米のPALMAユーザーが一堂に会する年次イベント「PALMA User Day」を開催しました。そこで共有された実践事例は、日本のものづくり企業にも届けるべきだと感じました。 そして先日、名古屋にて初の対面形式「PALMA User Day in NAGOYA」を開催。欧米の最前線事例を、日本のお客様・コミュニティの皆様に直接お届けしました。 4社の実践事例をご紹介しました： 🔹 Groninger｜製品アーキテクチャと組織をつなぐPALMA情報モデル 🔹 HNI Corporation｜現場で活きる “System of Systems” の実践 🔹 Alfa Laval｜ブランチ開発による安心・安全な高速並行開発の実現 🔹 ABB｜セールスコンフィグレーション導入を成功に導く実践ポイント 名古屋会場・オンラインでご参加いただいた皆様、誠にありがとうございました。会場での熱気から、日本においてもモジュラー製品アーキテクチャへの関心と機運が着実に高まっていると実感しています。またお会いしましょう。 #PALMA #モジュラーマネジメント #製品コンフィグレーション #製造業 #製品アーキテクチャ 🇬🇧 English In May, we brought together PALMA users across Europe and North America for our annual PALMA User Day. The stories shared were too good to keep in one hemisphere. Last week, we took the show to Japan — hosting our first in-person PALMA User Day in Nagoya, bringing those real-world case studies directly to our Japanese customers and community. Four success stories were shared, showing how global manufacturers are moving beyond Excel-based management and siloed product information: 🔹 Groninger — connecting product architecture and organizational structure through a unified PALMA information model 🔹 HNI Corporation — putting a "System of Systems" approach into practice on the shop floor 🔹 Alfa Laval — enabling fast, parallel development safely through branch development 🔹 ABB — key success factors for rolling out sales configuration Thank you to everyone who joined us in Nagoya and online. The energy in the room made one thing clear: there is real momentum building in Japan around modular product architecture. We will be back. #PALMA #ModularManagement #ProductConfiguration #Manufacturing #Japan #ProductArchitecture

❓𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝘀𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗤𝟯. The next few weeks are quieter for most teams. Inboxes thin out, the calendar clears, and there's actually time to think about something other than the next deadline. If you're working on or near a modular product platform, three questions are worth sitting with before everyone returns and Q3 planning kicks in: ◼️ What percentage of orders this year required engineering intervention outside the platform? If you don't know the number, that's the answer. ◼️ Which decisions about the platform got deferred this year because "we'll figure it out later"? Those decisions are now sitting in someone's backlog, quietly costing you. ◼️ Where does the platform's configuration logic actually live? In the system, in spreadsheets, in three people's heads? The honest answer tells you how ready you are for whatever your AI strategy turns into. None of these require a workshop or a consultant. They require an hour of honest thinking. The answers tend to make the second half of the year clearer than the first. #Manufacturing #ProductArchitecture #Modularization #Q3Planning

▶️ 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗳𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂'𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴. The next few weeks are quieter for most teams. If you're heading into them with a stack of "I'll get to this later" tabs, here's one worth opening. The complexity in your product portfolio is costing you more than you think. We pulled together three on-demand sessions on how to measure it, manage it, and turn it into a competitive edge. ◼️ Understanding — what optimal product complexity actually looks like ◼️ Quantifying — how to put numbers on the cost across your value chain ◼️ Realizing — what separates companies that sustain the gains from those that don't One registration. All three sessions. Watch on your own time. https://hubs.la/Q04msnCf0 #Manufacturing #ProductComplexity #Modularization

Congratulations to Aras Corporation on being named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for PLM Software in Discrete Manufacturing Industries. 🎉 A well-deserved recognition and a reflection of how central PLM has become in manufacturing operations. Strong PLM is the backbone of product development. It brings structure, traceability, and lifecycle control to engineering and when it's done right, it becomes the foundation everything else can build on. As an Independent Software Partner in the Aras ecosystem, we see firsthand how much value is created when that PLM foundation is complemented by dedicated product configuration capabilities — translating modular architecture into governed business logic that connects engineering with sales, manufacturing, and delivery in a consistent and scalable way. Together, these capabilities give manufacturers a clearer view not only of the product itself, but of the full portfolio of possibilities behind it. That's an exciting direction and one we're proud to be part of. 👉 Curious what product configuration looks like alongside PLM? Explore PALMA: https://lnkd.in/ev7sJumt #PLM #ProductConfiguration #ModularArchitecture #Aras #DiscreteManufacturing

𝗛𝗮𝗽𝗽𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗸𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗺! 🌸 Look closely and you'll see we couldn't help ourselves. Same wreath every year. Same dance, same long table, same too-many-types-of-herring. The structure is fixed across centuries. And yet no two midsummers are ever the same. Every family configures it differently. Turns out the Swedes figured out modular platforms a long time ago. Glad midsommar — however you configure yours. #GladMidsommar #Midsummer #Modularization

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝗜 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀. Tuesday's post was about the leading indicators that tell you your platform is working. Today, the indicator nobody is ready for. Every manufacturer right now is being asked the same question by their board. What's our AI strategy? Most have an answer. Pilots in design automation. Generative tools in engineering. AI-assisted configurators promised by the next ERP release. Almost none of them are ready for what happens when the AI actually starts running. Here's what's about to get uncomfortable. AI works on the data and logic you give it. Not the data you wish you had. Not the logic you assume is documented. The actual rules — the ones living in three spreadsheets, two senior engineers' heads, four legacy systems, and the exception that someone added in 2019 and never wrote down. When AI starts configuring products, quoting customers, designing variants, the gaps become visible immediately. Conflicting rules surface. Tribal knowledge that nobody codified turns out to be the only thing holding the offering together. Decisions that "everyone knows" turn out to be decisions only one person made. This isn't a future problem. Companies running AI pilots are hitting it now. Most are quietly pulling back the scope. The companies that will move fastest with AI over the next two years aren't the ones with the most sophisticated models. They're the ones whose product configuration logic is already structured, governed, and trusted as a single authoritative source. 𝗔𝗜 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱. 𝗜𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝗼𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿. Which raises the question worth sitting with before you switch off for summer: 𝙄𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙖𝙣 𝘼𝙄 𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙞𝙜𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙤𝙬, 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙙? #Manufacturing #AI #ProductConfiguration #Modularization