Getting Off Oracle Agile PLM: A Practical Migration Guide from a Medical Device CDMO | Industry Spotlight Series

Every company that has ever tried to "lift and shift" out of Oracle Agile PLM has learned the same hard lesson: it is never just a lift and shift.

Caroline Byrd, VP of Regulatory, Clinical & Quality at Nextern, a contract design and manufacturing organization (CDMO), has been living this migration firsthand, moving Nextern's entire business out of Agile and into Propel. In this session with Chuck Serrin, VP of Industry Marketing, MedTech at Propel, Caroline shares the unfiltered, step-by-step reality of what a successful Agile PLM migration actually requires, and where companies get tripped up before they ever go live.

Caroline walks through how to tackle the cutover timing challenge in a fast-growing organization when there is seemingly never good timing for it, how to structure your quality system now so it can flip cleanly to a new platform later, and why understanding your own business processes before selecting any tool is the single most important step in any PLM replacement project.

Key Takeaways

Define the scope of your Agile migration before you select a tool

The first decision in any Agile PLM replacement is determining whether you are doing a holistic cutover or a phased approach that starts with bill of materials, adds supplier records, and layers in quality processes over time. Getting that scope documented and aligned with your CFO and CEO is the business case foundation that makes every subsequent decision easier.

Start restructuring your quality system now, even before you select a new PLM

If your quality system procedures contain instructions that reference Agile at every step, migrating to any new platform becomes significantly harder. Caroline Byrd recommends writing work instructions that can function in Agile today but are structured to transfer cleanly to a new system when cutover arrives, reducing implementation friction and validation effort.

Cutover timing for an Agile migration requires deliberate planning

There is no perfect week to take away the tools a fast-growing company runs on. Successful Agile migrations require identifying lower-activity windows, planning workarounds for teams that will be affected, and building a cutover schedule that is honest about the tradeoffs rather than pretending the disruption will not happen.

Organizational change management is as critical as the technical migration

Switching off Agile PLM will surface process gaps, people friction, and adoption challenges that no software configuration can resolve on its own. Caroline Byrd's advice is to work with partners who have executed Agile migrations before, specifically for the project management and change management expertise, not just data migration or software validation support.

Business process clarity must come before tool configuration

Any PLM platform, including Propel, is only as effective as the business process understanding behind its configuration. Before mapping Agile workflows to a new system, process owners and subject matter experts need to define what they are actually trying to accomplish. That foundational clarity is what allows a deployment to scale with the organization and deliver the operational improvement the migration was designed to achieve.

Hear more about Nextern's transformation story. Watch Caroline's presentation from Propulsion 2026.

Learn More

Ready to understand what a move from Agile PLM to Propel actually looks like for your organization?

‍Make the switch is Propel's dedicated resource for Agile PLM users evaluating their options: it covers the migration process, use-case-by-use-case comparisons, real customer outcomes, and a risk assessment to help you understand the cost of staying put. If you are building the business case Caroline describes, this is the right place to start.

About The Industry Spotlight Series

Each webinar in Propel's Industry Spotlight Series welcomes a leader from a specific industry to share what's actually working — and what isn't — in their organizations. The sessions are customer-led, focused on real operational challenges, and designed to give you practical, peer-sourced insights you can put to work immediately.