• May 28, 2009

Excel’s Role in PLM Systems

Among many things in the business world, Excel is used to manage product data and product lifecycles. One blogger in particular, Oleg Shilovitsky, thinks, “The biggest market share in PDM/PLM belongs to Microsoft Excel.” We tend to agree. That means Excel, a simple yet flexible desktop application, is being stretched to meet needs typically reserved for expensive enterprise systems. However, Excel alone was never meant to be a PLM system.

We recently came across Mr. Shilovitsky’s blog dedicated to PLM information and discovered a couple blog entries about Excel: Why Do I Like My PLM Excel Spreadsheet? and PLM Excel Spreadsheets: From Odes to Woes. (Check them out, but they are not required reading for the following post.)

In his two posts, Mr. Shilovitsky communicates his love/hate relationship with Excel.  In some ways, he loves Excel and how it supports his work.  But to balance his rosy picture of Excel, he followed up the post with a second one about the things he hates.  I’d like to draw attention to a few points from these two posts.

First, Excel files, probably more than any other file type, are meant to be shared, but as Mr. Shilovitsky and a couple of his commenters pointed out, there is a lot of pain that comes after files have been shared. Since data is captured in a portable item called a file, it is easy to share that physical file with other people, but if the data ever changes or you only wish to share a portion of the file with someone, Excel, email, and even SharePoint are not an effective solution.

Secondly, the data he typically keeps in Excel is constantly changing, and if other people share the responsibility for keeping the file updated, it soon becomes a complicated mess.  Multiple people end up managing multiple files, even though the ultimate goal is a single consolidated spreadsheet containing everyone’s contribution. As one commenter mentioned, there is no way of “showing historical evolution.” Everyone’s edits and contributions are not recorded for review or audit trails.

Lastly, Mr. Shilovitsky often finds himself asking, “Where are my latest Excel files?” He says, “I’m sure you have asked this question many times. Is it the one connected to your mail? Is it the one on your laptop, or is it the one in SharePoint? When you have multiple Excels, and especially if you have multiple versions of these Excels, you will really be lost.” I would add, if you require contributions from other people, multiple people will be asking the same question about the same file. That is why it’s a good idea to move Excel online, as Mr. Shilovitsky mentions here.

Now, I’ve got great news. Many MAJOR manufacturing companies are using eXpresso to turn Excel into the type of enterprise-class application they need for spreadsheet collaboration. They are able to control an individual’s access to part or all of the file, review changes and file history, and simultaneously open or edit the same file at the same time. There is no more version chaos, no more hard-to-find email attachments, and no more wondering about the relevancy of the spreadsheets being shared.

To read about how other kinds of companies are using eXpresso, check out some of our customer use cases.

Thanks Mr. Shilovitsky for starting the dialog!

• By Gus