How does your sustainability practices within PLM compare against your peers?
Navigating the swiftly evolving world of modern manufacturing requires leaders to look beyond just cost and risk. The growth in customers’ expectations and increasing sustainability regulations are pushing product teams to revolutionize their approaches to product lifecycle management (PLM) and supply chain operations.
Manufacturers must make smarter and faster design and sourcing decisions and — given the urgency of sustainability — demonstrate their environmental credentials to thrive.
How is your organization navigating this transition? What differentiates those who are doing it well? Take our short self-assessment to find out.
The assessment will yield customized results and recommendations based on your responses and should take no more than 2 minutes to complete.
Please select the option that best describes your organization:
In which region is your organization based?
Please select the option that best describes your organization:
Which of the following best describe the primary type of product your organization manufactures?
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“We have a fully documented, centralized onboarding process that all suppliers must follow.”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“Sustainability credentials data provided by suppliers is verified by a risk management or supply chain certification platform.”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“We fully support Advanced Product Quality Planning (APQP) and Production Part Approval Process (PPAP).”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“Stakeholders across the organization have access to a single source of truth for product design and sourcing.”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“We have voluntarily committed to greenhouse gas reduction goals for our operations.”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“The environmental, social, and governance (ESG) status of approved-for-purchase suppliers is tracked automatically using software.”
To what extent do you agree with the following statements around your organization’s PLM and sustainability practices?
“There is strong collaboration across business units on key sustainability initiatives.”
Results Overview
Guiding designers to select approved materials, components, and suppliers is key to product innovation success.
The answers you provided in this PLM and sustainability self-assessment are used to determine your organization’s ability to rapidly pivot and adapt to changing market dynamics, customer expectations, and regulations.
Where is your organization today, and what can you do to boost its PLM practices in the future? Continue to see your personal results and recommendations.
Get your results and recommendations
Results And Recommendations
Your organization is among the of manufactures that has NoviceIntermediateAdvanced PLM practices. It is in the stndrdth percentile, meaning your organization’s PLM practices are more mature than of manufacturers. You’re below the 1st percentile, meaning your PLM practices are less mature than virtually all other manufacturers. You’re above the 99th percentile, meaning your PLM practices are more mature than virtually all other manufacturers.
There are firms in our survey that are more advanced than your organization.
Your maturity result: NoviceIntermediateAdvanced
Novice (17%)
Intermediate (61%)
Advanced (22%)
Your organization is among the of manufactures in the automotive building materials and chemicals capital goods and heavy machinery consumer durable goods (including electronics) consumer packaged goods other industry that has Novice Intermediate Advanced PLM practices. It is in the stndrdth percentile, meaning your organization’s PLM practices are more mature than of automotive building materials and chemicals capital goods and heavy machinery consumer durable goods (including electronics) consumer packaged goods other manufacturers. You’re below the 1st percentile, meaning your PLM practices are less mature than virtually all other manufacturers. You’re above the 99th percentile, meaning your PLM practices are more mature than virtually all other manufacturers.
There are automotive building materials and chemicals capital goods and heavy machinery consumer durable goods (including electronics) consumer packaged goods other firms in our survey that are more advanced than your organization.
Novice ()
Intermediate ()
Advanced ()
Also, of manufactures in Africa Asia Europe Middle East North America Sourth America are classified as NoviceIntermediateAdvanced. Your organization is in the stndrdth percentile, meaning its PLM practices are more mature than of manufacturers. You’re below the 1st percentile, meaning your PLM practices are less mature than virtually all other manufacturers. You’re above the 99th percentile, meaning your PLM practices are more mature than virtually all other manufacturers.
There are Africa Asia European Middle East North American Sourth America firms in our survey that are more advanced than your organization.
Novice ()
Intermediate ()
Advanced ()
Your organization’s score means its PLM maturity is only in the beginning stages:
- Your organization lacks a common single source of truth for product design, sourcing, and compliance reporting.
- Your organization’s processes to track and verify the sustainability credentials of materials, components, and suppliers are manual, error prone, and slow.
- Prioritizing cost reductions over regulatory compliance and sustainability improvement jeopardizes long-term competitiveness — and even survival.
- Your organization’s multiple sustainability systems and initiatives duplicate effort without adding value and its focus is on cost and managing the overhead of compliance reporting.
- Your organization’s classification of sustainability as a compliance rather than performance initiative risks undermining its capacity for competitive innovation.
Your organization should ensure consistent enterprise-level ESG data to reduce the incremental burden of regulatory reporting. Begin with these actions:
- Catalog the supplementary databases in which your organization manages sustainability data.
- Document the effort of maintaining multiple databases and the risk error in labor-intensive reporting.
- Build the business case for sharing sustainability data between engineering designers and teams responsible for compliance and risk management.
Reclassifying sustainability as a performance initiative is critical as your organization pivots and adapts to changing market dynamics, customer expectations, and regulations. Your organization should:
- Document the impact of duplicate ESG data on time to market for new product introductions.
- Document the risks and delays when designers determine sourcing for materials and components with incomplete data on sustainability.
Your organization’s score means its PLM maturity has advanced to the intermediate stage. Sustainability is beginning to yield some competitive advantages so that your organization’s ability to track and verify the sustainability credentials of suppliers offers it options and flexibility in the face of supply disruption or changes to customer or regulatory demands.
- Your organization has achieved some level of data harmonization.
- Your organization has scope to improve collaboration on supplier management across business units
- Your organization has scope to centralize supplier onboarding and compliance processes.
- Your organization’s multiple sustainability systems and initiatives duplicate effort without adding value and its focus is on cost and managing the overhead of compliance reporting.
A key next step is to start linking sustainability targets to performance indicators, such as new product introduction lead time, resilience to supply chain disruption, and win rate in competitive sales.
To capitalize on your organization’s achievement and transform sustainability into performance initiatives, your organization should:
- Guide its design engineers to choose materials and components that balance the most competitive combination of cost performance and sustainability characteristics for each market.
- Establish enterprisewide sustainability initiatives to synchronize business unit policies, methods, and systems.
- Centralize supplier onboarding and compliance review.
- Monitor the rate of accelerated compliant product introduction, including reduction in design rework at validation and verification stage.
Congratulations, your organization’s score means that its PLM practice is advanced!
- Your organization has achieved a high level of data harmonization.
- Your organization has a high level of collaboration on supplier management across business units.
- Your organization has centralized supplier onboarding and compliance processes but has the scope for further automation in ingesting third-party data sources to continually monitor sustainability characteristics of suppliers, materials, and components.
- Your organization’s sustainability initiatives now drive performance in terms of rate of successful product introduction, agility in the face of changing market requirements, and resilience in the face of potential supply chain disruption.
- Your organization has the scope to strengthen the connection between sustainability targets and performance indicators, such as new product introduction lead time, resilience to supply chain disruption, and win rate in competitive sales.
Your organization is in a position to embrace the differentiating power of sustainability. It should now:
- Continue to mature its data usage, focusing on automated data reporting to support KPIs, such as scope 3 emissions and time to market for new products.
- Continue to build flexibility to respond to new contingencies requiring alternate compliant bills of material or alternate compliant suppliers.
- Build programs to link differentiating ESG credentials to content, marketing and sales automation, monitoring subsequent improved win rates, and customer retention.
- Make a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction goals.
- Automate tracking and verification of suppliers.
- Capitalize on support for APQP and PPAP to win, serve, and retain the most demanding customers.
Next Steps
Read the research
Thank you for taking the time to complete this assessment! Click here to read the full Forrester report commissioned by Makersite.
Learn more about Makersite
Makersite is a product lifecycle intelligence software built to support product teams dealing with highly complex supply chain data. By applying AI-enabled Life Cycle Assessment (LCAs) and deep-tier, granular scope 3 reports, Makersite has helped manufacturers spend less time on disclosures and more time focused on designing and sourcing better, more sustainable products. For more information, visit makersite.io.
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Methodology And Disclaimers
Methodology
In this study, Forrester conducted an online survey of 493 product design and sourcing decision-makers at manufacturing organizations across North America and Europe to evaluate how they are incorporating sustainability into product lifecycle management (PLM). Survey participants included decision-makers in product development, engineering, and management; sustainability management; supply chain management; and procurement. Questions provided to the participants asked about the current state of and the challenges they face with PLM, a self-assessment of their PLM and sustainability practices, and solutions that can address their pain points. Respondents were offered a small incentive as a thank-you for time spent on the survey. The study began in December 2023 and was completed in January 2024.
Disclaimers
Although great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy and completeness of this assessment, Makersite and Forrester are unable to accept any legal responsibility for any actions taken on the basis of the information contained herein.