Steven: So, lessons learned, a hindsight: a wonderful thing in all these situations like that, is if you're embarking on the PLM journey, people get this preconception that PLM is all about the CAD, which it’s absolutely not. And we can talk about that surely, but regards our side, the journey at REE – having a clear direction, so you know what the tool is going to do, what you want, where you want to end up, is a very key enabler to get success using a PLM system.
It is quite intimidating at the start for sure. But if you keep it simple – so you know where you want to go, you know what you want to end up doing, you're not going to save the world overnight and produce something that is hundred percent perfect from a system point of view.
Keep it simple. Start with a process that can be developed, that you can build foundations and let the system grow with you. So having that clear focus at the very, very start of the project, understanding where you’re going, understanding what you need, what the end goal is, is really, really key.
And the one thing that we did from the very start of the process is, we kept everything simple. Simple part number, using industry-standard best-in-class processes, but simple, rather than making very complicated processes that people bring in from OEMs within the area. Just keep it simple, keep it focused, solid foundations that you can build as the project grows.
And we never let the design of the product be limited by our processes. The lead was always the product. So we never got hung up on our processes and the systems and our software. We didn't let that hinder the design in any shape or form, and I think that was a real key win for us. But knowing where you’re going at the start is a big thing.
The Dassault portfolio of products is like a sweetshop. You can walk in there, there are so many tools that you can use, you can buy, you can work with, and half of them probably are no benefit to everybody. So keep it simple. Start with what you know, build the product, build the process, build the platform and add as you need. And I think that's where we’re winning over now for sure.
Arvind: This is indeed sound advice to someone who is looking to embark on the PLM journey. I heard “keep it simple” so many times and it looks like such an important piece of being successful in the PLM journey. So what you advocated is to keep things simple and a crawl, walk, run approach to PLM.
We are coming towards the end of our discussion today but before you leave, Steven, I want to touch upon one final topic that is dear to you and your company, REE Automotive.