Product lifecycle management (PLM) has become more important in companies providing technologies and methodologies to manage data, information, and knowledge along the whole product lifecycle. In recent years, several authors have argued about PLM using a managerial or a technological view. The paper analyses these studies and integrates different author's points of view using focus groups, blogs, and face-to-face meetings in a university community of practice. Three sets of features (i.e., managerial, technological, and collaborative ones) have been used to review the existing definitions shared between academic and industrial ones and to propose an extended PLM definition describing its key concepts. The paper is a useful reference for managers and academics who want to have a clear and critical understanding of PLM using a unique source to collect lines of evidence on several PLM definitions, features, and concepts.
Continuous innovation, global collaboration, risk management in complex projects, and rapid technological changes are challenges that compel large and small enterprises to react by focusing on core competence, collaborating with partners in product design, engineering and production, or shifting part of the activities in low labor cost countries.
Producing complex products in this scenario requires that information about product and process is accessible to the several actors in the value network such as partners, suppliers, and customers. The tendency is to use a PLM strategy to integrate people, processes, business systems, and information in order to manage the product development [
PLM means product lifecycle management, and its value is increasing, especially for manufacturing, high technology, and service industries [
Different ICT systems contain knowledge about the products (e.g., CAD, CAM, PDM, NC, and CM), and the PLM ones allow to integrate all of them [
Therefore, PLM is a holistic business concept [
Looking at the literature and web sources, several definitions of PLM are actually available. These definitions have been designed in different contexts; they come from global consulting and research firms, online PLM communities, government agencies, technology and software vendors, universities and academic communities, worldwide PLM experts, and companies from various industries that have implemented a PLM project. All these definitions can be easily shared among industrial and academic definitions or depending on the emphasized perspective: some focused on technological applications, others on processes or strategies, but many of them are very similar.
Furthermore, given the importance and criticality of PLM for the companies, already some authors [
Evolving from the experience in a PLM community of practice (Co.PLM) of a research center in the University of Salento (Italy), the paper aims to define PLM integrating all its main features and concepts relevant both for managerial and theoretical purposes. To reach this aim an exploration of the PLM features, available definitions, and main treated concepts has been carried out. The research method has been based on three phases (i.e., starting, analysis, and validation) that use focus groups, a community blog, and face-to-face meetings to analyze the existing PLM definition evaluating three sets of features—managerial, technological, and collaborative ones—and elaborating a new definition. The paper is, in fact, original in the research approach used to create a PLM definition and in the proposed results that include a holistic PLM definition and a set of PLM features useful to guide future research.
The remaining of the paper is composed of four sections. Section
The research has been carried out in the “collaborative product design management” (cPDM) laboratory of the “Centro Cultura Innovativa d’Impresa” (University of Salento); it aims to support companies in the field of product design and development and to lead the research to new perspectives and findings. It is composed of about 60 researchers distributed among professors, fellows, senior, and young researchers, and Ph.D. students.
The research activities of the laboratory concentrated on complex products such as automotive, naval, and aerospace ones and proposed technological solutions for improving the companies’ practices. The laboratory is made up by several groups focusing on different research areas: simulation methodologies and data management, automation, product lifecycle data management, knowledge security, business process management, service engineering, energy and additive manufacturing, social network, and impact analysis. Each group is involved in several Italian and European projects including academic and industrial partners.
Since the product lifecycle management is a topic common to several cPDM Lab groups, a community of practice, called
In order to improve the sense of belonging to the community, the need to give a common meaning for PLM has emerged. Several definitions are available in the literature, both from industrial and academic sources, but there is not a unique one that includes all the aspects emerging from Co.PLM practices and knowledge. Therefore, the paper aims to answer the research question “what is PLM?” proposing a definition and describing each element (i.e., features and concepts) that characterizes it.
To address the research question, the collaboration among the community researchers had a central role to overcome biases and limits of an isolated researcher’s work and to reach a common and wide accepted result, emerging from discussions and reflections conducted both in virtual and face-to-face sessions. For these aims the research design is shared on three main phases: starting phase, analysis phase, and validation phase (Table
Research phases.
Starting phase | Analysis phase | Validation phase |
---|---|---|
At the whole community | At PLM Background work group | At the whole community |
Tool: focus group | Tool: blog, face-to-face meetings | Tool: blog, focus group |
Findings: |
Findings: |
Findings: |
During the starting phase, the features of PLM relevant to the community have been specified with the involvement of all the members of the Co.PLM community. Each member has described its own work activities and interest on PLM in order to share the available knowledge with the whole community. Later, a set of literature definitions has been collectively read and discussed highlighting the more interesting features of PLM. This phase has been developed following the focus group method [
The starting phase has been concluded with the characterization of three sets of relevant features to analyze the available PLM definitions: managerial features about business behaviors and processes; technological features about the main capabilities and characteristics of a PLM system; collaborative features about the relationships and cooperation needs during the activities of PLM.
For each set, some key dimensions have been highlighted to drive a more careful analysis of PLM definitions. In Table
Features, dimensions, and description.
Set of features | Key dimensions | Description |
---|---|---|
Managerial features | Integrated approach | It means the act of dealing with PLM considering its different related aspects (e.g., information, technology, and strategic points of view). |
Business strategy | It is how an organization takes decisions and manages resources to gain and maintain a competitive advantage over a period of time. | |
Creating value | It is the primary goal of every business; it means performing activities that increase the value of organization’s goods or services, generating wealth for its shareholders, and satisfying customers’ expectations. | |
Design, production, and maintenance phases | They refer to the different stages of the entire product lifecycle from its conception, through design and manufacture, to service and disposal. | |
| ||
Technological features | Product information backbone | It means a central hub storing different data distributed among heterogeneous systems; it creates a single view of product information that can be leveraged across the whole organization and its network. |
IT tools (CAX, PDM, etc.) | They encompass a board range of software and IT systems used in all the aspects of product lifecycle (design, analysis, manufacturing, production planning, product testing, collaboration, etc.). | |
Secondary information | It is all the information indirectly connected to the specific product knowledge (e.g., vendor application notes, catalogs, customer feedbacks, marketing plans, archived project schedules, etc.). | |
Traceability | It means the ability to chronologically interrelate product lifecycle information and to track all accesses and changes to the data. | |
Long-term archiving | It refers to the organizational need for long-term retention of older data; it helps an enterprise to maintain information integrity and demonstrate regulatory compliance and transparency. | |
| ||
Collaborative features | Integrating people, and process, data | It means combining in a unique approach different aspects related to PLM (business processes, human resources, data, etc.) so that they work together to better product lifecycle management. |
Sharing | It means using or enjoying data and information jointly with others in order to enable knowledge integration during collaborations in the product lifecycle. | |
Within and across extended enterprise | It means a borderless organization whose processes are transformed and integrated with the ones of its partners, based on cooperative and collaborative relations. |
The analysis phase has used these features for reviewing the PLM definitions available in the state of the art; the aim has been to describe for each of them the main insight and to underline the lack or the surplus of the specified key dimensions. This phase has been developed inside the work group “PLM Background”, and all the related members have been involved. A dedicated blog on the Co.PLM website has been launched to support the discussion and lead to a final definition. The blog with the discussions has been always available to the whole community in order to grasp further feedbacks. Inside the blog, all the initial definitions discussed in the starting phase plus other definitions emerging from a further literature and websites exploration have been inserted. The definitions have been shared between industrial and academic contributions. Industrial definitions, available on websites and white papers, come from research companies, software vendors, standard institutions, and online communities; instead, the academic definitions have been proposed by scientific representatives and experts, and they are available on scientific journals, conference proceedings, or books.
Each definition has been discussed both on the blog and during face-to-face meetings evaluating the congruence or not in respect to the features specified in the starting phase. During this phase, the literature has been explored, and collaborative ICT tools have been used to support the knowledge sharing among the community members leading to the new definition. In fact, since none of the available definitions allow to provide a comprehensive view on the PLM for the community matching each of the identified features, a new definition has been developed.
Finally, the validation phase has aimed to validate the developed definition in a community meeting where all the Co.PLM members have participated. The definition has been available on the website for a week before the community meeting, and the members have been invited to reflect on it and to post feedbacks. During the meeting, all the aspects related to the definition have been discussed following a focus group approach. Some improvements emerged and led to the final definition that has been accepted by the 90% of the members as the
CIMdata (2002), a research firm focused on PLM, proposes a very comprehensive definition: “PLM is a strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions in support of the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information across the extended enterprise, and spanning from product concept to end of life-integrating people, processes, business systems, and information. PLM forms the product information backbone for a company and its extended enterprise.”
The first important aspect that emerges is a new way to conceive PLM: “a strategic business approach.” The classical conception that views PLM as a set of technologies is outdated. CIMdata uses the word “approach” to capture all the various elements composing PLM, and it underlines the ability to integrate “people, processes, business systems and information” [
The CIMdata definition has been one of the first contributions about this matter, and it has inspired most of the following interpretations. For example, PLM System’s general manager Codrino, starting from CIMdata definition, points out that PLM allows to keep under control the “intellectual capital” necessary from when the product idea is conceived until the product becomes obsolete and unused. In particular, he defines PLM as the base of the “digital revolution” that is the ability to imagine, draw, design, build, and maintain a virtual product in a virtual factory, in other words to simulate the behavior of an object before realizing the first prototype. Then it is possible to put off the production with obvious advantages in terms of timing, cost, and quality. One of the most innovative elements in Codrino’s interpretation is the introduction of the “virtual reality concept,” a theme that is expanding in companies operating in forefront industries like automotive, aerospace, and medical device and that is considered fundamental for future development and competitiveness [
Another important contribution to PLM comes from an online community of PLM experts. PLM Technology Guide [
Also software vendors are involved in the PLM definition issue, and they have formulated their proposal.
According to Active Sensing Inc. [
Instead Aras Corporation [
One of the first businesses interested in PLM has been the automotive industry. An important definition that covers many features has been developed by Ford Motor Company [
An important PLM definition has been proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that tries to investigate the best definitions of product lifecycle management proposing its point of view based on the PLM as “a vision or a business strategy for creating, sharing, managing information about product, process, people and services within and across the extended and networked enterprise covering the entire lifecycle spectrum of the product” [
Garetti and Terzi [
Therefore, this definition deals with the integration of data and people but not the integration of business processes; moreover it is not specifically declared that collaboration includes all the partners belonging to the extended enterprise.
Stackpole [
Grieves [
With a brief definition, Abramovici [
Ming et al. [
In Rangan et al. [
According to Rachuri et al. [
These last two definitions [
Schuh et al. [
Saaksvuori and Immonen [
Stark [
As underlined in the review, the analyzed definitions contain reference to the managerial, technological, and collaborative features but with some limitations compared to the Co.PLM scope of analysis. Table
Summary of the literature review.
Critical review | |||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Industrial definitions | Academic definitions | ||||||||||||||||
Features on PLM | CimData [ |
Ford Motor Company [ |
Sudarsan et al. [ |
Codrino [ |
PLM Technology Guide [ |
Active Sensing, Inc. [ |
Aras Corporation [ |
Garetti and Terzi [ |
Stackpole [ |
Rangan et al. [ |
Grieves [ |
Abramovici [ |
Ming et al. [ |
Rachuri et al. [ |
Saaksvuori and Immonen [ |
Schuh et al. [ |
Stark [ |
Managerial | |||||||||||||||||
Integrated |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||
Business strategy | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||||
Creating value | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
Design, production, |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||
Technological | |||||||||||||||||
Product |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||
IT tools (CAX, |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||
Secondary |
X | X | |||||||||||||||
Traceability | |||||||||||||||||
Long-term |
|||||||||||||||||
Collaborative | |||||||||||||||||
Integrating people, |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||||
Sharing | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||||||||
Within and across |
X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
From the critical review emerges a large set of definitions covering managerial and collaborative features but in the technological field there are some gaps. In particular, the industrial category definitions are more complete: they focused on collaborative aspects and emphasized the concept of PLM as central hub of product data. Nevertheless no one of the specified definitions treats and cites aspects related to product data features in PLM approach and system. The concepts of traceability and long-term archiving that are instead very relevant to the experiences of the Co.PLM members have never been cited in any definition.
Looking at the results of the literature review, a definition has been elaborated including references and peculiarities related to all the specified features. Therefore, PLM for the Co.PLM community of practice has been defined as follows: PLM Product lifecycle management—is a strategic business approach that supports all the phases of product lifecycle, from concept to disposal, providing a unique and timed product data source. Integrating people, processes, and technologies and assuring information consistency, traceability, and long-term archiving, PLM enables organizations to collaborate within and across the extended enterprise.
A set of key concepts focalized on management, technological, and collaboration aspects are arranged around the proposed definition and can be specified in the following: strategic business approach; phases of product lifecycle; a unique and timed product data source; consistency, traceability, and long-term archiving; integrating people, processes, and technologies; collaborating within and across the extended enterprise.
They are described in the following section paying attention to the innovative aspects. Figure
The PLM landscape.
According to the most popular definitions (e.g., CIMdata, NIST, Grieves, and PLM Technology Guide), PLM is defined as a
Although the word approach is vague and not very precise, it allows to widely include in PLM the integration of people, technology, business systems, information, and processes, which are sometimes more important than data [
An important aspect of PLM is the capacity to manage all the product life cycle phases, from the definition of the product concept to its manufacturing, distribution in the market, and final disposal or recycling. Several authors have tried to specify the PLM phases, such as Ming et al. [
The lifecycle phases are generally viewed as cyclic and sequential but overlapping can be helpful to guarantee the concurrent and simultaneous engineering reducing lead time and improving quality [
One of the PLM fundamentals is integrating and storing all data about product in unique and timed sources. Recently, PLM has extended the scope of product data management from CAD data and engineering drawings to a larger perspective including workflow and processes (e.g., to share information between different design activities) [
The need of “uniqueness” emerges from the fragmented product information that resides in different organizational departments and functions (e.g., IT, engineering, manufacturing, and sales) and includes the extended enterprise with its suppliers, business partners, and customers. This means that information is not related not only to product design and manufacturing, but also it encompasses all data indirectly connected to the product structure (e.g., catalogues and customers’ and suppliers’ feedback). Furthermore, product information is often “hidden” and exists only on an ad hoc basis (e.g., Excel sheets); it is often duplicative and inconsistent because the organizations have the same information in many different forms [
In this landscape, useful information can be loose, generating additional costs and inefficiency and slowing down the flow of information that can be instead improved with a PLM approach.
The concept of “timed data” refers to the ability to trace the path of product information through its time and to be informed about the data and their reference period.
Therefore, guarantying the integrity of product information is very important for organizations, especially for those ones working in complex product development such as aerospace companies.
A PLM system, like unique data source, should make information consistent, traceable, and long-term archiving. “Consistency” refers to the capacity to maintain close links between different data in different versions, so it could be easier to understand what information is being impacted by the change of a data and to facilitate the search for information relating to an object in a particular version. “Traceability”, thanks to the consistency of the data, allows to rebuild the whole history of a product keeping track of all its changes and revisions. “Long-term archiving” refers to the ability to retrieve a particular piece of information even after a certain period of time. Even if traceability and long-term archiving look like two similar concepts, they have different scopes. The traceability is about providing information about the evolution and changes in the product data during the whole lifecycle; instead the long-term archiving is related to the capacity to store and recover useful information also after many years. For example in the aerospace industry the product lifecycle is longer than 30 years during which it is necessary to guarantee the product support and to respect legal and moral requirements for the dismantling phase.
The product lifecycle involves several people, processes, and technologies. They are highly related in a wide net of interactions, and PLM tries to provide an integrated view.
Product data are created and managed by actors with different roles both internal (i.e., employees of different units) and external (i.e., contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, partners, supplier’s suppliers, customer’s suppliers, customer’s customers, etc.) to a company. Each phase of the lifecycle is executed by people involved in processes that can be specific to a product or project or to the organization. All the information generated in the processes is used for realizing the product in a coherent way.
Besides there are many types of systems that can be used across the lifecycle (e.g., CAx tools, ERP; virtual reality systems, and electronic parts catalogues) and that are integrated in the PLM systems [
Complex and knowledge intensive product is often carried out in network of firms to reduce the development cost and to access knowledge and technologies crucial to realize single components or subcomponents [
In industries that produce complex products or operate in complex scenario, the tendency is to use a PLM strategy to integrate all elements (people, processes, business systems, and information) that participate in product development process and support its lifecycle along the value chain. Given the increasing importance of PLM inside the companies to support and guarantee the management of product data during the whole lifecycle, and based on the experiences of a PLM community of practice (Co.PLM), the need of a more wide and integrated definition has emerged.
In the paper, definitions coming from industrial and academic sources have been reviewed using three sets of features (i.e., managerial, technological, and collaborative ones) relevant to the community of practice. From the analysis of the existing definitions, some gaps have emerged. There are mainly a lack, in the analyzed definition, of the concepts of “a unique and timed product data source” and “consistency, traceability and long-term archiving” relevant to the scope of the analysis. Therefore, a definition has been proposed, and the related concepts have been explained. Even if there are several studies available on PLM, the proposed definition extends the state of art introducing a further insight for an immediate and overall view in the PLM both for new practitioners and also old ones. This result has been reached with a high collaboration among the community of practice members and the use of focus groups, web-based tools, and meetings to support the analysis and the definition development. The used methodology is in fact completely original with respect to the previous studies. It combines points of view by different researchers and is highly interactive and based on a strict set of features and dimensions to analysis. The used methodology can be also applied by other communities of practice for their specific needs of research.
Furthermore, the proposal of the three sets of features to analyze PLM is a further innovative contribution of the paper that can be also used by other researchers to design their own PLM investigation.
Finally, further elements could be considered and introduced in the PLM definitions and concepts such as sustainability, user experience, and intelligence but they will be object of future elaborations.