Most plants track the annual seat renewals and call that the software cost. The bigger line item hides in the middle: consultants who keep the BOM syncing from CAD into PLM, PLM into ERP, ERP into MES, with QMS hanging off a shared drive. Every connector is another product you did not choose — and another invoice you keep paying.
When one vendor ships an API change, the thread snaps overnight. Change orders stall. The shop floor runs on last week’s revision because the sync job failed quietly. Thirteen rented systems means thirteen places where the “digital thread” is actually a batch file with someone’s pager attached.
N23D is built so that glue is not a product line. One native Rust binary, one part identity from CAD through PLM and ERP, local-first vault, permanent license. Entra signs people in; it does not host your history.
One platform. Full digital thread. If your BOM only stays true because a nightly job finished green, you are renting coherence — not owning it.