I spent a few days at Plex’s user conference in Detroit this week. For me, the backdrop was the invigorated city as I describe here. That amplified the many upbeat conversations and presentations I witnessed at the event.
Jason Blessing, CEO invoked the WEF meeting in Davos earlier this year where the theme was ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution”. While the world’s movers and shakers may just be coming to grips with that concept, Blessing nicely pointed out against a backdrop of smart watches and digital calipers “These are all things Plex customers are doing TODAY”. On the show floor, there were smart glasses from Google and others and smart helmets from Daqri.
I heard the term Mittelstandt mentioned a couple of times during the event. That is the legendary backbone of German small manufacturers and the PowerPlex audience of 1,200 at Cobo Hall, home of the annual North American International Auto Show, reflected the American equivalent of our manufacturing Renaissance.
Plex organized conversations with two customers, Quatro Composites and Polamer Precision who play in the aerospace sector. (Quatro also services medical and other markets). They both talked about explosive capacity growth in their businesses. The sky appears to be no limit for the industry as commercial aviation spreads globally, and as next-gen autonomous and space vehicles take off with a wide range of new applications.
Plex organized a visit to a plant of MFC Netform, a metalformer of components used for powertrains in automotive and agriculture. The squeaky clean plant emphasizes 5S manufacturing, and blends “operator led” autonomy with several Fanuc robots which do many of the dirty and dangerous tasks and proudly has a giant “Made in Detroit” sign above the floor. General Manager, Tim Cripsey, humorously described innovation and value creation as a tier supplier in the cut throat automotive sector.
In those conversations and during the plant visit you could see Plex used widely across shop floor and logistics functions. It is so different from countless other ERP implementations which stay at the headquarters and barely register with the manufacturing staff.
Beyond aerospace and automotive, in a humorous twist Blessing invited a food and beverage customer, Green Flash Brewery on stage and had Genze, a Mahindra (from India) company drive up in their electric scooter and deliver some Green Flash beer. Genze is aiming for the last mile commute market with an all-aluminum frame and portable battery.
Plex is benefitting from the vibrancy and diversity of these customers. It is also expanding its market share in the manufacturing sector. The image below summarizes the impressive metrics Blessing and his team are delivering.
Plex is also growing up as a company. It has transitioned from a largely customer funded model to a Plex funded one and is more modern cloud vendor than systems integrator. Some of the early customers miss the development support they used to get, but none complain about the growing functionality they are getting as part of their annual subscription. The opportunities for Plex’s services partners to step up into extension roles are pretty clear.
Overall, an enjoyable and educational couple of days. Plex is evolving nicely, and the city of Detroit is enjoying yet another Renaissance.
