Siemens PLM Software Blog

Chuck Grindstaff is president and CEO of Siemens PLM Software. In my latest Chat With Chuck, we covered some interesting ground. Listen in to hear his thoughts on:

• merging cultures and innovation styles
• today’s engineering graduates and the job market
• HD-PLM’s role in enabling innovation and problem solving
• prospect and customer conversations

Download the December 2012 Chat With Chuck

On merging cultures, I liked this comment from Chuck:

“Software acquisitions are not really about getting code … it’s about bringing the best and brightest people with a different perspective on the market together into the team.”

Chuck noted that top talent engineers are in a sellers’ market. He spoke about the difference between these new graduates and retiring engineers. Many new graduates are specialized; older engineers are multi-disciplined. So student and new engineers should rotate into other roles so they can best help their companies find integration opportunities. Likewise, companies need to cultivate “a culture that enables exploration.”

As we talked about HD-PLM’s role in enabling exploration, he noted that many manufacturers are measuring the time end users search for information across multiple systems. Integration is becoming more important than ever. It’s why PLM is not dead. And why we continue to make improvements along  those three core areas of HD-PLM:

• Intelligently integrated data
• Future-proof architecture
• High-definition user experience

The goal:

“People can focus on the problem not the system…I want it (our software) to be so intuitive they can focus almost exclusively on the engineering problem that they’re faced with…and the system responds to whatever they throw at it.”

Chuck noted that many prospects are measuring the time end users spend getting into and out of all the software tools they need to access. They find a lot of waste that can lead to tremendous savings with the right integration. To use an analogy from Chuck – we may have mapped the product genome but there is a lot more science to come in PLM.

Finally, I asked Chuck what one thing has changed the most in his career. “Software” might sound like the obvious answer for a CEO of a software company, but listen in at 23:20 to find out why he says:

“Software is … the motive factor in innovation.”

I referenced two items in the interview:

• Elon Musk’s Mission to Mars Interview in Wired

• Monster.com U.S. Engineering Job Conditions Report (PDF)

In case you missed it, there is a thorough Q&A Chris Kelley did with Chuck last month just after the LMS announcement that covers more on our acquisitions this year.

Let me know what questions you have for Chuck for our next chat.

-        Dora

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Tags: chat with chuck, Chuck Grindstaff, HD-PLM, innovation