Episode 6: Designing for a Circular Future: How QCM Brings Sustainability into PLM with Martin Lundqvist & Jörgen Ekblad

In this episode of the Share PLM Podcast, we are joined by Martin Lundqvist (CTO/Senior PLM Business Consultant at QCM) & Jörgen Ekblad (COO at QCM). QCM is a Swedish consultancy specializing in sustainable business development and digital transformation. With expertise in areas like PLM, software configuration management, DevOps, and UX/service design, they focus on understanding organizational needs to implement effective, customer-centric changes. They work with both small to medium-sized Swedish companies and large international organizations. Their holistic approach ensures digital solutions that drive continuous improvement and innovation.

Here are the key themes and takeaways from our rich and insightful discussion.

⚉ Lessons from Ericsson: Standards and Structure
⚉ PLM goes beyond software and the power of collaboration
⚉ Early encounters with sustainability
⚉ How motivations for sustainability have evolved
⚉ Why digitalization matters in sustainability data tracking
⚉ How to make data management fun
⚉ The rise of the Digital Product Passport (DPP)
⚉ Circular Economy: Connecting the dots between lifecycle thinking, cost savings, and innovation
⚉ How to design products with sustainability in mind
⚉ Why sustainability demands collaboration
⚉ The missing link in circular transformation
⚉ Customer expectations are driving change
⚉ AI and the Digital Product Passport
⚉ Martin and Jörgen's lessons from experience
⚉ Final Takeaways: Start where you are


CONNECT WITH MARTIN AND JÖRGEN:
⚉ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-lundqvist-phd-8a8aa961/ 
⚉ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j%C3%B6rgen-ekblad-6399842/ 

CONNECT WITH SHARE PLM:
⚉ Website: https://shareplm.com/ 

Join us every month to listen to fascinating interviews, where we cover a wide array of topics, from actionable tips, to personal experiences, to strategies that you can implement into your PLM strategy.

If you have an interesting story to share and want to join the conversation, contact us and let's chat. We can't wait to hear from you!

Transcript

[00:00:11] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Share PLM podcast. I am Beatrice Gonzalez, CEO of Share PLM, and today, as always, I'm with my co-host Jo Voskuil, and welcome Jos. How are you doing today?

[00:00:26] JOS VOSKUIL:
Hi there. It's a wonderful and sunny day here and, uh, I look forward to our discussion. And hey, we have, uh, two guests this times. Who are they?

[00:00:34] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yes, we are very happy today Jos and I to have with us Martin and Jörgen from QCM. We have been all friends since maybe more than six years, so we met each other at the beginning of Share PLM journey and we have been always trying to find ways to collaborate. Because we realized since the beginning that the PLM implementation cannot be successful without the people, that, and this is what has make us working together and do different activities.

For Jos, Jos will correct me, but Jos is an advocate for sustainability, and the topic for today's podcast is going to be mostly sustainability and PLM. So yes, please Martin and Jörgen, can you introduce yourself and your company?

[00:01:23] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yes, of course. Martin Lundqvist is my name, working for a small company called QCM. We are working with topics around the sustainability and PLM and digitalization in general. We work a lot with the people side of it and trying to get people to work with within the processes with correct data, the information flow within the company.

So we work with companies in all sizes, from very small companies actually to multi or global companies with thousands of employees in different worlds. I've been working for QCM since 2018. So in a number of different projects. Yeah. And QCM is located in southern Sweden, so it's in Maba, where we also have sunny weather today, which we are glad to. And we are 10 years old as a company and a lot of the, my colleagues and myself comes from the telecom business.

So we came from Ericsson, which is a very structured company, and into Sony Erickson and to Sony Mobile. And then we, we learned a lot there from the PLM implementation and said that, okay, we did it good there, let's do it good in other companies. So we have a lot of experience from, from that implementation.

So then we started to go out to the Swedish companies and use these experience we had from, from that journey, which is really, really fun.

[00:02:43] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay. Yeah and interesting enough, we all share a long history together. I also met Jörgen in the good old days of product information management and we all care about the people. I think that's very important.

Jörgen, Martin, before jumping into our favorite topic for today, the Digital Product Passport, you mentioned you both had a career in Ericsson and you have been active in product information management, data management. Can you tell me something about the topics that you learned there?

[00:03:11] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, well I started mostly from the perspective of software configuration management. You really need to have control over your, uh, software branching strategies and, uh, and information about what the software contains. But more and more in my career, I leaned more into the full product and the product lifecycle. When I actually met Jörgen the first time was as at my previous employer when they came to do a PLM project. So that's when I really went from being a software CM to understand the full PLM scope. And therefore from then there's the journey.

[00:03:52] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yeah, good job with the recruitment Jörgen .

[00:03:54 MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, yeah. We, we sometimes we are successful. No but I think my journey started in 97. I hadn't worked with product information before when, when I started at Ericsson. but then I came quite fast into, uh, the Ericsson world of rules and how to actually information stand that you have. Ericsson has something called Ericson Corporate Basic Standard, which actually is about the rules regarding diesel parts, how you actually revise them and how do you actually obsolete them and how you prove them. And, and a lot of that in a big guide that you can read and that we said is the essential in the PLM implementation. So that's what we actually stole from Ericsson and make a modern version of that in Sony.

And we see that these in-between processes and systems, you need to have this map of different classifications, rules and guidelines and how you work with the product data and also how you map things together. So that is the niche of QCM as well. We have that, that's a glue between the business processes and the systems, which we think is really, really key to be successful. Yeah, like a common language really within the company. So everyone, when they say a product, they mean a product and the same product.

[00:05:13] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay. I think I understand how the importance of standards and methodology and the time you were working on that, was it before I would say regulations related to sustainability came into the picture. But I'm curious, where in your personal lives did the sustainability come into the picture? Was it long before the standards or was it already from the start? When did it happen?

[00:05:34] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah so good question, Jos, thank you. And I thought about it also sometime back, but I think it was when we did this change in the company in Sony Ericsson. Where we had also, when the REACH and RoHS regulation came 2006, I mean, that was the first thing that we saw that okay, you need to keep track of all the components and also the material in, and substances in, in our products.

And that was the first thing we need to find a solution for it. And we used Bomb check there and we used the Ovia platform at that time and we tried to key to, to migrate this into to one solution. And we did that quite well. And then also the, so systems came with a solution for handling this, but that was the first step into a sustainable thinking. And I've been working also in the system side, like more packaging and the mobile phone accessories. And then you need to have a system thinking as well, not only the product, but also the, actually the corrugated cardboard. That has also an impact on the environment.

[00:06:37] JOS VOSKUIL:
And if we look to the society, I mean the Scandinavian countries also have been famous for at least eco-friendly design and ways of living. RoHS and REACH are more technical. It's more electronics, and, uh,

[00:06:48] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
It is, but it was a start. But then it, it has grown a lot.

[00:06:54] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay.

[00:06:54] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
And then, and nowadays you see, I mean it started then to you should have the waste in different bins and so on. I mean, that is what we are used to now in our houses to sort things for different reasons and recycling. So it comes also into the everyday life of each and every person here. But I think from sustainability perspective, it is two and a half years ago since we actually started to be more focused on sustainability and also how we can use product data to do reporting in the regulations that is coming now.

Yeah. I actually had a project at the food company, which I unfortunately can't, can't disclose, but it was very, very important for my epiphany of how to use PLM for sustainability because they presented CO2 values on their packaging. And I helped 'em design a system using PLM system to calculate the CO2 emissions through the bomb. And we hadn't seen that before, and this was 2020. And they didn't have a regular PLM or any of the big brands, so to speak.

They used an MDM system for this. So I have to, had to design the architecture around the bomb and how to, to do this for them. I helped them with that, but that's where like the idea for me came up. Come on, well, why don't we do all the sustainability data in PLM?

[00:08:25] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
And what was the motivation for this company or for the market in general to focus on sustainability? Is it the regulations or is it that they believe in it, so, and how it affects to the PLM?

[00:08:39] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
For them it was very much a marketing thing back then. They wanted to show that they were almost CRO, CO2. So back then it was, that was the driver. Nowadays it's different. I think.

[00:08:54] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
So nowadays the regulations have a more impact, right? In how they…

[00:09:00] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
I would say it is both. I mean, there are companies that I've worked with sustainability for years and there are some, like Patagonia for instance, is one company.

[00:09:08] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yes.

[00:09:09] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah. And you know that. And then I see it it is more or less being in front of in its each market now. And in the, let's say the product type, like textile, you need to be in the forefront. So they've been working with that for years, but also seeing some, some positive things also to having control of the data, to take the right decisions at the right time. Use the right suppliers to have control of their LCAs because it has been quite reactive before you have done these lifecycle assessments, but now you need to be more proactive to actually select the right material when you design and develop products.

[00:09:46] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Totally.

[00:09:47] JOS VOSKUIL:
And I think the, the big elephant in the room we talk about PLM supporting sustainability. The big elephant in the room is data. I think looking at RoHS and REACH in the beginning I saw companies just collecting PDFs, filling in bomb data with carbon emissions, people were guessing.

And since nobody knew, the guess is probably good, but how we want to be reliable, repeatable, and for me that means that if you, you implement PLM, it needs to be data driven PLM. Do you see also this trend to that companies move from documents to data?

[00:10:20] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yes, I think so. Definitely. And of course they might be slightly biased because we are talking to our, to our customers and they come to us of a reason. But definitely so and for example, just looking at the how to move away from the PDFs of RoHS and REACH and going into the material information, a substance. So you need to really objectify everything now to be able to present the information you need and also to be able to design using that data. PDF doesn't cut it.

[00:10:53] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Exactly. And also for the AI, you need to have your data well defined and accurate to be able to use the latest technologies. Right? So…

[00:11:03] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:05] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, that is also one reason to digitalize your product data, I mean, to use in a good way.

[00:11:11] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
And also I have one question. I'm curious because talking about data management, Jörgen, you were saying at the beginning, data management is, is fun. Can you tell us some tips to make it fun for the PLM users or for the PLM people? What are the tips that, to make it fun?

[00:11:34] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, I think the thing is to make it fun is to be concrete. I mean, it, it is really an abstract and complex area. And you need to show people, well, how you can use the data in, in a good manner, and also how you can use it for personal reasons in your daily work. So I think it is really important to make it concrete and that's why we are working with a project right now to actually make DPP data now, now more concrete using a PLM tool.

But you need to provide data into the tool and then you need to, okay, this is how it can use the data. It's for different reporting reasons for maybe business intelligence to make better decisions. And if you have it digitalized and in control way, you can use it for many, many reasons. And not only within development, actually within the whole company. We say also product management like, and sourcing and so on.

[00:12:26] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yeah.

[00:13:32] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
I love the concrete word that you were mentioning because usually we tend to try to measure everything. It happens to me in the company, so a lot of data to see how we are going. But indeed, the difficult part is to make it concrete that maybe I need only one KPI, I need two numbers. So also there's the magic there, how to make it concrete.

[00:13:52] JOS VOSKUIL:
And I think coming back to the fun, I think data is fun because if you look at sustainability reporting initially, it's not part of the source. It's reactive that that is done by other people afterwards. And our favorite topic, where we want to dive into the digital product passport.

That starts also from the design you have to be embedded in your whole process. And do you see this change? You are doing seminars with companies on, on digital product passport. Are people now really bringing it to the design phase also, or is it still reactive in the reporting phase?

[00:14:27] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
I think companies are waking up now and, and see slowly, but surely. Slowly but it will happen and, and it happens. I think actually since the delegated acts for each product type will come and they will be more concrete than, more actually specific in how to work with the data and what data. I think then people will, will start to work with it more focused. And also I think that at least the companies we talk to, both as customers and when we have all these seminars that we are do, quite often nowadays, we see that they are starting to think not that just that as the regulation, but trying to figure out how they can be better or how they can be in front of the competition.

Because they understand that there is a market advantage of being using this, the DPP as a window out to their customers. And also getting control of the data, you have better intelligence internally. You might actually be able to do better products. You can look into the circular economy models where you can actually earn a lot of money if you do that right. But everything is connected to have the data you need to be informed of.

[00:15:40] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yes.

[00:15:40] JOS VOSKUIL:
Exactly. Yeah. And if we look at the discussions we have with the PLM Green Alliance, uh, we talk about, uh, the fourth dimension for sustainability. At management level, people talk about cost, quality, and time. And now sustainability is the fourth dimension. So it, it needs to be reported. It needs to be visible and in this way it also be reaches management level. If we tell the story and educate the people correctly, huh?

[00:16:05] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah, I think the circular economy can be a really strong driver there. When the companies get that, when they open their eyes for what they actually can do there. Because there is so many options and so much you can do, but you need to understand it and have a vision, and then you need to design your product to fit that vision. Because you can take an existing product whatever product and say, oh no, we're gonna circularize it. That's not easy. You need to actually design your product to be circular in what, whatever way, what, there is many circles.

[00:16:41] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
And I think that the two challenges, the more challenges, but it's also the history of the products you already have on the market. I mean, how do you, how do you deal with that for repair and spare parts management and so on. And then you need to change your design process to get more into the design process. Maybe you need to test more, you need to test differently, uh, to also see if you can prolong your product. You need to look into the spare parts, how you can repair it, and simplify the web repair for repair services and how we can recycle things.
So it's more into the development process now to make it more circular than the products now. But then you have the history of the current products, which is can be messy.

[00:17:23] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yeah, this is what I was thinking, that this design for sustainability, design for aftermarket and this kind of collective thinking in the company, it needs lot of change, organizational change management effort to have everyone aligned and from the beginning of the product to have. Or the requirements for the lifecycle of the product to really have the data.

Do you have any recommendation for the people that really wants to improve their design, considering other aspects, how they should proceed? How can they align the other stakeholders or departments?

[00:18:00] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
As you know, I mean, over the years it has been a lot of design for anything, design for manufacturing, design for automation, how it's designed for sustainability and and so on. So I think it's tricky, but it's also a, a kind of a competence that you need to put into to the development area.

And what is sustainability? I mean, how should you think when you select materials? I mean, it's always a price material. And also now you need to look into the geopolitical things and also different sites where manufacturer, where you buy things. So it is a lot of parameters now to take into consideration when you decide and you need, of course a group of people. You need to have people from sourcing and, and procurement and in close collaboration with the designers and development, you need to have contact with product management to set all the goals for sustainability. See, it will be, uh, one big part of the design process, I think going forward.

I also think it's uh, I want to add there that when you set the vision for the product and you should communicate that and what, what is the purpose of us doing this so that when you, the designers are sitting there with the data and choosing materials and choosing suppliers and so on that they should have the purpose and understand why they're doing this.

Yes. It's because this product will live its life in, in this way. It will be a product as a service, or it will be a prolonged life cycle or, or whatnot. And it should be recyclable to a hundred percent. So you put the requirements and you have a purpose. And also we see a lot of the younger people today are very purpose driven in, in how they work. So I think that's important.

[00:19:42] JOS VOSKUIL:
Right. I think in one way we speak very hopeful here, but uh, also as Jörgen said, it's about collaboration. And traditionally companies are not designed to collaborate. They are more linear from left to right and deliver the product and changing the processes in such a way that it becomes collaborative.

That service people also discuss with engineering about serviceability of a product. Do you see this happen? Because that's a real organizational change that must come from the top. Huh?

[00:20:12] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah. And that's something we bring into our projects now. I mean, it's like you said it’s we have liner like business models today, but you also have liner process models. We need to circular process models. I mean as well. And I see also that we should bring in this into the companies.

And that's what we try to do when we go in and work with the processes, development processes in the companies. And as you know, and as you also have, have written, is that 80% of, of the decisions for the impact of your products is taking your design and development. So it's really important to be proactive and get this into all kinds of organizations.

When we do our webinars, and so we usually talk with different roles in a company and we say, who is responsible for this to happen? I mean, who takes the lead in getting this into a company of designing circular products? It's not easy. Nobody wants to take the lead, but the top management needs to take the lead in the beginning here.

[00:21:12] JOS VOSKUIL:
And how do you motivate the top management Are you in, in that game also in motivating?

[00:21:20] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yes, yes we are. Yeah. And not in the big companies, but when you have a small and medium sized companies, you can reach the top management and talk with them as well. So I, I have actually a meeting with a customer of mine with a CEO of a company of fairly big European company. And I think it's interesting to hear that they see that sustainability for them is really important.

They are starting to tackle the circular economy for their products. It's in the middling in industry but they are a little bit struggling. But they, they clearly want to go that route and they see that they need it not only because of the regulations, but also because their customers really want this to happen. And it's all about the information because they need to show the data. They need to be able to present the sustainability values of their products.

[00:22:12] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Okay, so we are approaching to the end of the episode, but before we wrap up, Jos do you have any final question for Martin and Jörgen?

[00:22:21] JOS VOSKUIL:
Yeah. Actually one more. We haven't discussed so much AI, maybe a quick one. Where do you think AI is going in the next let's say two, three years for companies?

[00:22:31] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
I think it will increase a lot to the, the use of AI but I think it will differ a lot between companies too. Some are mature, of course, more technical, advanced electronics and software companies are using AI to a big extent already.

The more industrial companies, they are lagging far after. So I see they will struggle maybe but they need to pick up the pace that too.

Yeah, so when we are talking about the digital product passports and so on, I just say that it's just the tip of the iceberg. The DPP, I mean, it's below the surface that we have the complexity. It's actually the product data that's 90% of the iceberg. I think that's good to tell people you need to take care of the 90% to be able to use AI as a good tool for you, because it's a tool, it's a tool.

[00:23:19] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay. And then my favorite question about experience, eh, experience is what you get when you don't get what you expect. And so you build up experience in your life. And I want to start with the most experienced guy, Jörgen. What is your best experience that you can share with us?

[00:23:36] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
That was a tough question. I think one of the best experiences I, I can bring in is we're talking PLM is not a tool that's the most important thing. PLM is how we actually have handle data, but you shouldn't forget the other information and documentation. That was the first thing I learned coming into Ericsson at that time.

We need to take care of the project documentation, the process documentation, and the line documentation, because it all starts with projects where you take decisions for the products and you need to have processes in place. You need to take care of the processes and update these documents and processes to be able to work in the right way. So it's not only the product data, it's all the information around the product data, how you work and where you take the decision and that you have minutes or meeting four decisions taken. It's all traceable to why you actually designed this way. That's my experience, which I bring with me.

[00:24:36] JOS VOSKUIL:
Okay, a big one and Martin.

[00:24:39] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yeah. I especially did, so we must make the product data but more to people at my previous employer, I was the manager and I built a team from scratch with great people within DevOps and software team and some development. And everything went great until one day, when it started to fall apart.

The company didn't do very well. And I had to sack my whole team. And I left at the same day as the whole team. And that was really hard journey, but we learned so much in this team and they're great people and they all got job. Pretty much the day after they, uh, finished and I'm having a great job here. So it opened up the opportunity for me to come here and have another of my team colleagues in QCM two nowadays. So that's the life is a rollercoaster. But stick to the journey and you will end up in a great place and keep up having fun.

[00:25:40] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Yes, totally having fun.

[00:25:42] JOS VOSKUIL:
There we are.

[00:25:42] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
So what would be the takeaway for our listeners today then? Have it fun.

[00:25:48] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Yes, of course.

[00:25:51] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Anything else that you wanna add for our listeners? The takeaway?

[00:25:55] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
I just want to thank you Bea, and Jos to bring us in to this call. It's really nice. Yeah. It's really fun to be here and I, I think that regarding sustainability for all the listeners, it's a lot of job, but start where you stand. And don't try to do everything at one time. You need to build a base and have a vision.

[00:26:14] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
That's very good life advice. Yeah.

[00:26:16] JOS VOSKUIL:
And, and like you said, Jörgen thanks for the part I would say everyone should focus on interaction and talking with people. You don't learn from the books, you learn from the interaction. So also thank you for your, uh, inputs and contribution.

[00:26:30] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
Thank you very much Jörgen and Martin for sharing this nice time with Jos with me.

[00:26:35] MARTIN LUNDQVIST & JORGEN EKBLAD:
Thank you. Thank you very much.

[00:26:36] JOS VOSKUIL:
Thank you.

[00:26:37] BEATRIZ GONZALEZ:
And thank you to our listeners. So if you would like us to discuss any topic, please leave us a comment and we'll be happy to hearing your thoughts and discuss them in the next episodes.