#114: Building a Digital Thread One Problem at a Time: Sea Box’s PLM Story

In this episode, Juliann and Jonathan sit down with John Salyers and Korey Greene of Sea Box, a company transforming standard shipping containers into high-engineering, mission-ready solutions.This is a refreshingly honest look at a PLM journey filled with false starts, side-hustle implementation work, CAD file chaos, revision control challenges, and the realities of deploying PLM in a fast-moving engineering organization.John and Korey share how Sea Box went from a home-grown Microsoft Access database that crashed “every other day” to a modern PLM system tied directly to CAD, BOMs, and ERP. They walk through what they would do differently, what worked, and how the engineering + project-management partnership has been key to moving everything forward.If you’re on your own PLM or ERP journey, you’ll hear something familiar in their story—and you’ll walk away with practical lessons to avoid the same pitfalls.Key Takeaways• False starts happen—and they’re recoverable.Sea Box had to abandon their first PLM integrator and restart the project, losing time and budget in the process.• “Just stand it up” creates long-term debt.Rushing to replicate old systems (like their EPN database) created unnecessary customization and downstream headaches.• CAD chaos is a universal pain point.Without revision control and file governance, something as simple as quoting a replacement part becomes a scavenger hunt.• CAD Connector changed everything.Push/pull of CAD models, drawings, and revisions now ties engineering design directly to BOMs and ERP.• ERP forced better discipline.Migrating to Business Central required rigor around BOM structure, revision control, and part history.• Multi-perspective leadership matters.A PM + engineer co-admin partnership allowed them to weigh impact on both engineering workflows and business processes.• Community accelerates progress.Sea Box credits the Razorleaf community and user conference for solving problems they thought were unique.• Always use a dev environment.You will break things. You should. But do it safely.If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow the podcast, leave us a rating, or share your biggest takeaway in the comments.Have a topic you'd like us to explore next? Email us at [email protected] is considered “royalty-free” and discovered on Story Blocks.Technical Podcast Support by Jon Keur at Wayfare Recording Co.© 2024 Razorleaf Corp. All Rights Reserved.