In the aftermath of COVID-19, as product development companies shift their focus on accelerating initiatives that enable more agility and operational excellence, the need to adopt Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has become quintessential. With an appropriate and customized PLM software on-board, forward-thinking organizations can establish the digital thread for Industry 4.0 and unlock a multitude of benefits like better quality products, faster time to market, reduced costs, greater customer satisfaction, and much more.
To reap such benefits, companies need a technology partner that specializes in PLM technology and can execute a successful PLM adoption program.
Pune based SteepGraph Systems Private Limited has been taking care of the PLM implementation needs of organizations worldwide since 2009. Its customers value the company’s strengths such as a very competent and knowledgeable team, best-in-class project management practices, responsive management, a result-oriented mindset, and quality consciousness.
The Journey Towards PLM Technology Services Leadership
The name SteepGraph was coined to indicate the upward growth graph that its customers could achieve by partnering with it. From the very beginning, SteepGraph’s core value was to deliver 120% in whatever it did for its customers. Over time this has become an integral part of the organization’s culture and winning formula. Customers today identify SteepGraph as a trusted partner who is always focused on maximum value delivery by going the extra mile.
The company started its initial business by offering PLM consulting and engineering services on Dassault Systemes products (ENOVIA, CAD Integrations, CPG Accelerators to name a few). The first year saw SteepGraph working on global projects in South Korea, Taiwan, India, Canada, and the U.S. The next year, 2010 was a challenging year with no new business, but a strategic partnership with another PLM vendor Aras Corporation gave them the critical boost.
From 2011 onwards, the company kept growing at a rapid rate with an expansion of its portfolio (both services and tools), team, customer base, industries, and geographies. In 2013, it become an official service provider partner (SPP) for Dassault Systemes and increased its footprint by setting up a subsidiary in Michigan, United States.
Comprehensive Offerings for PLM Success
SteepGraph offers expert consulting and engineering services on two major PLM platforms currently – Dassault Systemes 3DEXPERIENCE and Aras Corporation’s Aras Innovator. It covers an end-to-end spectrum – consulting, implementation, enterprise integrations, upgrade, migration, training, support, and maintenance.
On the 3DEXPERIENCE side, it leverages its own tools and frameworks to significantly reduce the time and cost incurred in a large-scale PLM project and bring quicker wins for the 3DEXPERIENCE platform users. Some of these tools and frameworks are – 3DX Test Automation Suite, aka, 3DX TAS (ensures high-quality and bug-free releases), 3DX ETL Framework (speeds up data migration to the 3DX platform), 3DX Upgrade Framework (enables much faster version upgrades) and many more.
On the Aras Side, Steepgraph has developed industry-specific solutions, namely, AutoLean for automotive T1 and T2 suppliers, AeroLean for aerospace suppliers, PharmaLean for managing product and process data in Pharma industry and InfraLean for the AEC industry.
A Proficient Leader
SteepGraph Systems Private Limited was founded by seasoned PLM industry experts Himanshu Zalavadiya and Kalpesh Zalavadia and later joined by Avinash Manerahimatpurkar as a Co-founder.
Himanshu Zalavadiya is the CEO and Co-founder at SteepGraph. He comes with 20+ years of PLM technology and industry experience. Blessed with long-term thinking ability, Himanshu understood very early that PLM software has a very pivotal role to play in how products of the future will be built. PLM software has the potential to fully digitize and transform business processes and enable product development organizations to unlock the value of digital manufacturing. He says, “PLM enables organizations to grow, which leads to industry growth and which ultimately leads to a nation’s growth.”
He and the other co-founders also understood the challenges faced by organizations to implement PLM and unlock its value. Each customer has its unique processes that need to be implemented in a PLM software platform. The more the customization, the more difficult it is for the customer to keep up with future upgrades. The legacy systems containing the organization’s unique knowledge and data also need to be retained and utilized for a successful PLM adoption program.
He sums it up saying “PLM Implementation Is the Biggest Hurdle to PLM Adoption”. This has been his major motivation – removing the various hurdles to PLM implementation and enabling customers of all sizes to unlock business value.
Customer-Centric and Value Focused Approach
SteepGraph engages with its customers on their PLM projects at a very early stage. Their team tries to understand the vision and goals of the project from the key stakeholders on the customer side. After listening to their views and studying their as-is systems, the team chalks out a clear project plan and also proposes the usage of its products and solutions wherever value can be added to create a win-win situation for customers as well as SteepGraph.
The team has a very deep knowledge and understanding of 3DEXPERIENCE and ARAS Innovator PLM platforms. Even though SteepGraph is primarily a services company, it has a dedicated R&D lab that is responsible to develop products and solutions through extensive research on market needs and past project experiences. The company’s technical expertise in software engineering enables it to build platform architecture for its products, solutions, and even services to cater to the specific needs of its customers.
Handling Hurdles
Some of the biggest challenges to excel in running a successful PLM business are to cope up with rapidly changing industry trends, technologies, PLM products, acquiring new skills, attracting talented consultants, and at the same time being Quality focused and Cost competitive. Also educating customers on global best practices and organizational change strategies is one of the key challenges. It needs a fine balance between adoption and change.
SteepGraph’s vast experience in the PLM industry helps it to tackle these challenges diligently. At the same time, its core philosophy of not reinventing the wheel and bringing reusable components, tools, and methodologies helps it to deliver consistency, quality, and cost-effective solutions to its customers.
After garnering years of experience, Himanshu advises the younger players saying, “If you want to be a successful entrepreneur in the PLM industry; learn to align with the customer’s Vision, build agile work culture to adapt ever-changing industry/technology/customer needs and never compromise on quality. Go slow but strong.”
The Road Ahead
PLM has traditionally been used as PDM. However, with the inevitable Industry 4.0 revolution, companies will have an extended enterprise value chain integration with their suppliers, partners, and customers. PLM solutions have the potential to transform the way products are designed, produced, and serviced. SteepGraph Team is continuously working on innovations in tools, products, and solutions to reduce the cost to customers. It will have a much stronger focus on the North American market with Girish Gowda as Managing Director of SteepGraph North America.
Bringing the PLM benefits to Indian customers is a big focus for the company as well. “India can become a hub of digital manufacturing using PLM technology”.
Moreover, will continue to expand our expertise to other major PLM platforms, related technologies and offer an even bigger yet value-focused solution portfolio for our customers worldwide,” concludes Himanshu.
