Product Lifecycle Management with Michael Corr

Welcome, Michael Corr of Duro!

• Chris met Michael when he was still working at a drone startup in SF
• Wendover Productions video about drone delivery
• After that he did consulting for a while and then started Duro
• PLM stands for "Product Lifecycle Management". If you have used a system that has change orders, it was likely a PLM.
• Chris first experienced this as paper tracking at a co-op in mid 2000's
• Michael wants the process to be more like Pull Requests in software revision control.
• It can be tough dealing with binaries when doing revision control.
• There are other differences when comparing hardware vs software revision control.
• Separations of engineer from buyers means there's less insight into supply chain woes
• Purchasing changes once you go to production
• Michael got started in R&D at SRI (Stanford Research Institute)
• He then moved to a high volume manufacturing job and was surprised at the differences. Notably the cost benefit of spending time costing down a BOM another 10 cents.
• Chris maintains that this is why hardware engineers are cheapskates
• Another problem in the industry is that tools aren't interoperable, requiring meta layers like Duro.
• DFM and DFA are tough to do because there is a "wall" between manufacturing and engineering.
• Mechanical examples
• Michael says having quick iteration is another similarlity with a more desirable process: Agile feedback loops
• What does a release process look like?
• Where is the source of truth? To avoid the manufacturer using the wrong attachment, Duro sends a link instead of an attachment
• Tying into ERP systems that purchasing deparments might use.
• Tying into MES software package integrations for companies doing their own manufacturing (like on the shop floor)
• The problems are everywhere: big companies might be able to move faster, but it's by grinding with tools like spreadsheets
• When Michael moved to LA, he started mentoring at a hardware accelerator program
• When do people start using PLM systems? Chris thinks it should be "Two boards and an interconnect"
• Michael says it's important to start using PLM ASAP, at the very least to start using a part numbering system. This was a similar opinion that Jan Rychter (PartsBox) had about management systems.