Enter…Program Planning, a new application in the Teamcenter suite.

In my last blog post, we looked at the changing landscape and new trends across different industries requiring us to adapt the way we manage our businesses to stay competitive. We left off with a note on how a PLM based Program Management solution can take on these business challenges and help organizations deliver quality projects in shorter timeframes.

History of Program Management in Teamcenter

Program Management in Teamcenter has been in the works since 2013, when the voices advocating a PLM-centric planning solution started getting louder. Almost every industry, customer and internal expert we spoke to, expressed an interest towards planning and executing projects in one location. Some of our automotive customers went a step-ahead and worked with us to build an industry template called Automotive Supplier Process (ASP) to address this challenge. It quickly caught the attention of customers outside the automotive domain and everyone started talking more about the need for such a solution natively in Teamcenter. All of these trends indicated a clear need for a targeted application to manage programs and projects in a PLM.

With this goal in mind, we set out to build an application which not only enables the conventional aspects of project management but also capitalizes on the traditional strengths of a PLM and gave it a moniker, Program Planning. It aims to provide project teams, a seamless experience as they move between the planning and execution of a project.Teamcenter Program Planning – Timeline

The “Elevator Pitch”

Program Planning provides a top-down approach to plan and execute programs or projects in an integrated PLM environment. It seamlessly leverages the basic PLM capabilities like Design data management and Change management while complementing detailed planning capabilities offered in Schedule management. Depending on the customer and their business challenges, it can go further to support documents and requirements in the context of a program while also providing detailed dashboards and reports to all project team members and stakeholders. Program Planning is supported on the Active Workspace Client of Teamcenter.

Putting the Pieces Together to Manage Programs

Program Planning provides the standard building blocks used to construct plans which are used to steer product development activities in most organizations. It leverages the traditional program management practices while also providing the flexibility for companies to follow agile methodologies. Let’s take a closer look at the basic objects of the Program Planning application.

While the above objects are specific to Program Planning, additional capabilities from other Teamcenter applications can be leveraged to deliver a holistic program management experience. Some of those objects are shown below.

Conceptual Model for Program Management in PLM

The image below shows a conceptual view of how a program and project can be organized in Teamcenter. 

Conceptual view of managing programs in Teamcenter

If all of this sounds interesting, you are not alone. Everyone we have shown this to have responded very positively and the common theme we hear is, “That’s how we plan our programs!”

However, I can already see these questions swirling over your heads.

• Is this the right tool for my organization?


• Is it going to be easy to use especially for my project managers?


• Will this support my existing business processes?


• What if I am already using Schedule Manager, do I still need this?


• And probably more …

Well…there are two options. If you need answers right away, please reach out to your sales contact and arrange for a demo. If you are still exploring, keep an eye on this blog series to learn more about how Program Planning can augment your business processes and deliver value.

About the Author: Mohan Sivahari is a Product Manager with Siemens PLM Software. He comes from a CAD/Engineering background with experience in developing/supporting PLM strategy and implementations in heavy equipment, automotive, and consumer product industries. His current focus is to solve program and project management related challenges faced by PLM users.