Product Lifecycle Management - Introduction

• Emerged in the early 21st century – a new paradigm to manufacturing industries.

• Enables companies to manage their products across their lifecycles.
• Enables a company to be in control of its products across their lifecycle.
• Not easy to implement.
• Addresses areas such as products, product data, business processes, applications, people and
organizational structures which were considered and managed separately.
• Cross-functional and cross-enterprise.
• Product lifecycle participants – in different time zones, use different applications & work for
different companies.
• Responsibility for the product change at different phases of lifecycle – marketing, sales etc.
• Getting an agreement on a common approach among all organizations – time consuming.
• PLM helps to get everyone to work together effectively.
• Implementation may take a long time. Clarifying & straightening out processes, data,
organizational issues and applications can be time-consuming.
• Knowledge about the product may be in different applications – Computer Aided Design (CAD),
Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), supply Chain
Management (SCM) & Customer Relationship Management (CRM).
 Need for PLM - Importance
• PLM focused on product which is the heart of PLM & source of company’s revenue.
• Gets products under control across lifecycle thereby reducing manager’s risk.
• Improves the activity of product development – grow revenues by improving innovation, reducing
time-to-market for new products & providing superb support & new services for existing products
• Enables collaboration across design chain and supply chain. Helps bring together management of
products and processes. Gets engineering change management under control. Helps ensure
compliance with regulations.
• Enables to reduce product related costs through provision of tools and knowledge to minimize
material and energy costs. Helps cut recall, warranty and recycling costs.
• Gives transparency to managers about what is happening over the product lifecycle.
• Enables better support of customers’ use of products.
• Enables the value of a product to be maximized over its lifecycle.
• Helps companies respond to opportunities resulting from social and environmental changes.
 Opportunities

1. Growing Market - New markets create new opportunities

• Population growth demand for more products in various countries. PLM helps to have control
over the products in various locations.
• Increase in number of elderly people – need for special health products and services.
• Increase in overweight & obese people – need for weight reduction products.
• Working time drops – Leisure markets increase.
2. New Technologies - open up new markets & lead to new products.
• Transistor, computers, Bio-Technology, Nano-Technology
• Designer drugs – match an individual’s particular genetic make-up.
• Intelligent clothes – change performance as weather changes and wearer’s mood changes.
• Cyborg technology – part human, part machine – electrodes pick up brain activity and control the
machine part.
• RFID technology – products tagged with chips that provide information about products when
scanned. Products tracked throughout their lifetime. Products have their own web address, with
performance data and feedback being available online.
3. Smart Product Opportunity – Intelligent products – sense & communicate information
• A smart washing machine – read labels on clothes through scanner – select suitable wash cycle.
• Smart packaging – labels on meat products change colour from blue to red as temperature rises.
• Smart lawn mower – sense obstacles, height of grass, smart microwave oven, smart water
softener.
• Voice applications.
4. Opportunity of Global Products
Billions of people benefit from products to which they had previously no access.
BMW – Munich, Germany. 1992-in USA, 2006-22 sites, 12 countries, 4 continents.
5. Social and Environmental Opportunities for Products
• Years ago, factory chimneys & coal-burning fires polluted cities – led to deaths in London in 1850s.
• Laws demanded use of cleaner fuels.
• Photochemical smog occurs when sunlight acts on nitrogen oxides in vehicle exhaust gases.
• Incomplete combustion of fuel leads to carbon monoxide, a colourless, odourless, poisonous gas.
• Laws are concerned with emissions from cars, disposal of cars, electric & electronic goods.
• PLM addresses all these issues as it has control over the products throughout their lifecycles.
6. More Opportunities for Problems
• Unsolved Problems – Environment, Poverty, Unclean water, slums, Disease, Accidents.
• Balance of Power – By 2040, countries with largest economies will have to meet needs of large
population of poor people rather than reaping profits.
They may have the economic power to change the rules of world trade to meet the demands. Eg.
Change the rules of protecting property rights that render products at unaffordable prices.
NGOs and State-owned companies have to develop & manufacture the products.
Foreign private-owned companies offer new, advanced, complex & high-value-adding products.
• Increased Regulation – in environmental performance, pollution, R&D for certification. Different
requirements and regulations in different countries and trade zones complicate the activity of
compliance that is taken care by PLM.
• Better Managed Product Companies – Product development projects managed to get products to
market on time. Product portfolio managed to maximize the product value. Society expects
producers to take responsibility of their products which mean more control over lifecycle.
• Multitude of new products
• Web-based Product-related Services – On-line sales and auction of products and services. All
functions associated with the products are available over web leading to web-based PLM.
• Breakthrough Computer Aided Product Development – increasing complexity leads to simulation
of a product’s physical and financial performance before large investment.
PLM – business activity of managing, in the most effective way, a company’s products all the way
across their lifecycles; from the very first idea for a product all the way through until it is retired
and disposed of.
- Manages both individual products and the Product Portfolio

Objective of PLM – increase product revenues, reduce product-related costs, maximize the value of
the product portfolio and maximize the value of current and future products for both customers
and shareholdres.

Product Lifecycle Phases

1. Imagination Phase – idea of an product.
2. Definition Phase – ideas converted into a detailed description.
3. Realization Phase – product’s final form.
4. Use/Support Phase – product with the customer.
5. Retirement Phase – retired by company, disposed by user.

Retire/
Imagine Define Realize Use/Support
Dispose
Managing the product across the lifecycle
Making sure
1. The product idea is not lost or misunderstood.
2. The development project for product meets the objectives.
3. The correct version of definition is used for production.
4. The product is correctly maintained, taking into account of its serial no., production date,
previous upgrades, changes in market and technical evolution.
5. Poisonous components and toxic waste from product don’t get anywhere near sources of
drinking water.
Loss of control - Consequences can be serious.
• During product development – late to markets. Airbus A380 – 2007 instead of 2005.
• During product specification – A350 – launch 2004, expected in 2010. Customers not interested,
new design A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body) launch 2006, entry in 2013.
• During product manufacture – 2006 – computer makers announced replacement of sony-made
lithium-ion batteries because of overheat problem.
• During product use – July 2000 – loss of power & fire in Air France Concorde
• Recall – October 2003 – Nissan – engine defect, 2008 – Toyota – Accelerator pedal & Floor mats.
A PDM business solution model