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Product lifecycle management - From its history to its new role

Article  in  International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management · November 2010

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2010.036489

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360 Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2010

Product lifecycle management – from its history to its

new role

Sergio Terzi*
Department of Industrial Engineering,
University of Bergamo,
Viale Marconi 5,
Dalmine (BG) 24044, Italy
E-mail: sergio.terzi@unibg.it
*Corresponding author

Abdelaziz Bouras
Technology Institute IUT Lumiere,
Université de Lyon - Lumiere Lyon II,
160 Bd de l’Université,
Bron Cedex 69676, France
E-mail: abdelaziz.bouras@univ-lyon2.fr

Debashi Dutta
Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
226 Mechanical Engineering Building,
1206 West Green Street,
Urbana, IL 61801, USA
E-mail: ddutta@illinois.edu

Marco Garetti
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering,
Politecnico di Milano,
Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32,
Milano 20133, Italy
E-mail: marco.garetti@polimi.it

Dimitris Kiritsis
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne,
STI-IGM-LICP,
ME A1 396, Station 9,
Lausanne 1015, Switzerland
E-mail: dimitris.kiritsis@epfl.ch

Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Product lifecycle management 361

Abstract: This paper is a result of comprehensive consultation among the

authors, with the scientists and leading actors in the area of PLM, which is a
reference term for a list of phenomena currently ongoing in the industrial
community. This paper discusses the pervasive concept of product lifecycle
management (PLM), starting from its history to its constituent elements and its
role in the current industry. The authors propose and elaborate their vision for
the future steps of the PLM in terms of emerging issues and topics that
industrial practitioners and researchers need to address.

Keywords: product lifecycle management; state of the art; trends; visions.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Terzi, S., Bouras, A.,
Dutta, D., Garetti, M. and Kiritsis, D. (2010) ‘Product lifecycle management –
from its history to its new role’, Int. J. Product Lifecycle Management, Vol. 4,
No. 4, pp.360–389.

Biographical notes: Sergio Terzi is a Senior Researcher in the Department of

Industrial Engineering at the University of Bergamo. In 2005, he received his
joint PhD from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Nancy
(France) defending his thesis about PLM. His current research interests are in
the area of product lifecycle modelling and optimisation. Currently, he is
Convenor of the IFIP WG 5.1 (Global Product Development in the Whole
Lifecycle) and Member of the IFIP WG 5.7 (Advanced in Production
Management Systems).

Abdelaziz Bouras is a Full Professor at the University of Lyon, where he is

leading the PLM research group. He was involved in the development of some
product standards and contributed to several technical prototypes and
architectures for PLM. He is a Member of IFIP WG 5.7 and Vice-Chair of the
IFIP WG 5.1 for Europe and Africa.

Debashi Dutta is a Dean of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois

Urbana Champaign where he is also William and Jane Gutgsell Professor of
Mechanical Science and Engineering. His current research is in the areas
of global product development and lifecycle management. He is a Fellow of
ASME and received his PhD from Purdue University. He is a Vice-Chair of the
IFIP WG 5.1 for USA.

Marco Garetti is a Full Professor of Industrial Technology at the Department of

Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering (DIG) of Politecnico di
Milano, School of Engineering. He is a Director at the Business School of
Politecnico di Milano of the Executive Master on Management of Industrial
Maintenance and Chairman of the international IMS initiative M4SM
(Maintenance for Sustainable Manufacturing). His current research is based on
maintenance management, sustainable manufacturing and product lifecycle
management. He is a Member of the IFIP WG 5.1 and WG 5.7.

Dimitris Kiritsis is a Faculty Member of the School of Engineering of EPFL

(Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). Currently, he is a Secretary of
IFIP WG5.7, Founding Member of ISEAM (the International Society of
Engineering Asset Management) and Member of IFIP WG5.1 and ASME and
Program Chair of the IMS MTP workshops. His current research interests are
in sustainable manufacturing, closed-loop lifecycle management and ontology-
based engineering.
362 S. Terzi et al.

1 Introduction

1.1 The forerunners of product lifecycle management

Product design, manufacture, repair and recycle are concepts that have evolved since the
early days of human history. Today, they are very complicated and knowledge intensive
processes. Despite great advances in tools and techniques of product development and
support, the central idea is still the same: determining a certain set of needs – actually
becoming from a customer – and developing a product that satisfies those needs.
Take for example a village cobbler (Ameri and Dutta, 2005) who typically performed
all tasks that lead to the design, manufacture, repair and recycle of the shoes. This
vertically integrated model is one that enhances data integrity and facilitates accessibility
and usability of product and process knowledge. Variations of this simple ‘cobbler
model’ have been in use for a long time, and even today, it is the most efficient model for
highly customised products. In this model, people, information, resources and processes,
the basic building blocks of an organisation, are highly integrated and the resulting
environment supports the growth of tacit knowledge, i.e. the intellectual property of the
organisation.
The major shortcoming of this model is its lack of scalability. As quantity,
complexity and variety of the products increase, the one-person enterprise becomes
inefficient and insufficient. During scale up, processes that formerly used to be performed
by a single person are fragmented into several pieces each of which requires a simpler
process, i.e. simpler tools, less skill and less knowledge. This happens for all processes of
the product lifecycle, i.e. design, manufacture, distribution, use, support, maintenance,
repair, recycle and disposal. For the design and manufacturing phases, the reduction to
simple unit operations gave rise to the mass production paradigm. In existence today, this
paradigm is efficient for producing large quantities of products in automated and semi-
automated plants. However, this paradigm also brought about a fragmentation of product
and process knowledge and led to the silos of knowledge situation, i.e. typical in today’s
corporate world. The repair phase – the cobbler’s shoe maintenance activity – once
performed by the same person on well-known items, is now dispersed from a spatial
and organisational point of view, among many different service units. Also, the recycle
phase – once missing or again performed by the cobbler – is now increasingly mandated
by regulations based on sustainability.
In the cobbler model, all information about the product is integrated in the cobbler’s
mind and all competences are in his hands. From an information point of view, no special
problems arise for design (the cobbler knows the customer requirements and the design
constraints) or for manufacturing (he knows which material is required for the type of
product and the process to operate on it) or for repairing (the cobbler knows how the
product was manufactured). From a competence point of view, arts and crafts define
cobbler’s success (peasants recognise immediately the craftsmen cleverness).
Nowadays the situation is quite different. Product information is dispersed among
various actors, who have their competences and – often have – their personal conception
of the product and its performance (Figure 1). In this heterogeneous and distributed
environment, getting people, information and processes to be ‘on the same page’ is a
challenge. However, to be competitive in today’s global economy, companies must
manage their value chains effectively for reducing lengthy product development cycles
 Product lifecycle management 363

and development costs while improving quality. This challenge is already well-known in
the market and the literature under the reference term of extended enterprise.
In an extended enterprise, distributed, multidisciplinary and cooperative teams are the
norm (e.g. Grieves and Tanniru, 2008). Hence, for what concern product design, today’s
knowledge-intensive product development environment requires a computational
framework that enables the capture, representation and reuse of product and process
knowledge (e.g. Rose et al., 2007). In the manufacturing phase, all this product
information has to be shared along the production and distribution chain and
synchronised with future updates. Moreover, product data are to be put at disposal of the
service chain during the use and support phase. Mutually, during the product use, input
data on product behaviour could be collected for design improvement. The recycling and
dismissal activities could require and provide information on components, materials and
other resources. Such sharing and managing of product data, information and knowledge
forms the essence of product lifecycle management (PLM).
PLM can be thought of as the information age manifestation of the cobbler model that
focuses a company on its value chain and seeks to reintegrate people, processes,
resources and information. Organisations are realising that keeping focus on products and
creating a common language around them is more than just a philosophical viewpoint; it
is fundamental to success. To this concern, PLM is a business strategy for creating and
sustaining such a product-centric knowledge environment. It is rooted not only in design
tools and data warehouse systems, but also on product maintenance, repair and dismissal
support systems. A PLM environment enables collaboration between – and informed
decision making by – various stakeholders of a product over its lifecycle.

Figure 1 The 21st century cobbler model (see online version for colours)

Design Chain Supply Chain Service Chain

Design Manufacturing Distribution Use Dismiss & Recycle

Support, Maintenance & Repair

Value Chain

PLM is already well-known in the market of information and communication

technologies (ICT1). As a technology solution, PLM is an integrator of tools and
technologies that streamlines the flow of information through the various stages of the
product lifecycle. Unlike other technologies, PLM is not a point solution or an off-the-
shelf tool. Instead, it is grounded in the philosophy of connectivity of knowledge and
seeks to provide the right information at the right time and in the right context. In one
sentence, it can be said that PLM enables the establishment of a sustainable,
364 S. Terzi et al.

product-related, corporate strategy for competitiveness. Currently, the PLM acronym is

playing a ‘holistic’ role, bringing together products, services, activities, processes,
people, skills, ICT systems, data, knowledge, techniques, practices, procedures and
standards (Stark, 2005). The following sections will explore this concept, defining its
main elements.

1.2 The meaning of product lifecycle

The term ‘lifecycle’ generally indicates the whole set of phases, which could be
recognised as independent stages to be passed/followed/performed by a product, from ‘its
cradle to its grave’.2 Adopting an easy-to-use model, product lifecycle can be defined by
three main phases (Kiritsis et al., 2003), as stated in Figure 2:
x Beginning of life (BOL) including design and manufacturing. Design is a multilevel
phase since it comprises product, process and plant design. Generally, a design
action implies a recursive application of multiple sub-actions: identifying
requirements, defining reference concepts, doing a more and more detailed design,
developing prototypes and performing tests. Manufacturing means production of the
artefacts and relevant internal plant logistic. During this phase, the product is in the
hands of the company within the boundaries of the enterprise (at least at its extended
meaning). In the BOL phase, the product concept is generated and subsequently
physically realised. Using many tools, techniques and methodologies, designers,
planners and engineers develop the product design and the production process, plan
the production facilities and manage manufacture of products with diverse suppliers
(generally, through information sharing with an enterprise resource planning (ERP)
system).
x Middle-of-life (MOL) including distribution (external logistic), use and support (in
terms of repair and maintenance). In this phase, the product is in the hands of the
final customer, i.e. product user/consumer and/or some service providers, e.g.
maintenance actors and logistic providers. In the MOL phase, products are
distributed, used and supported (repaired and maintained) by customers and/or
service providers. The product history related to distribution routes, usage
conditions, failures and maintenance can be collected to create an up-to-date report
about the status of products. Real-time preventive services, e.g. car control services,
can be organised.
x End-of-life (EOL) where products are retired – actually recollected in the company’s
hands (reverse logistic) – in order to be recycled (disassembled, remanufactured,
reused, etc.) or disposed. EOL is the phase where products are collected,
disassembled, refurbished, recycled, reassembled, reused or disposed. It can
be said that EOL starts from the time when the product no longer satisfies its users
(the initial purchaser, a second hand owner, etc.). Information from EOL about
‘valuable parts and materials’ (what materials they contain, who manufactured them)
and other knowledge that facilitates material reuse should be routed to recyclers and
reusers, who can obtain accurate information about product status and product
content.
 Product lifecycle management 365

Figure 2 Product lifecycle phases (see online version for colours)

Beginning of Life Middle of Life End of Life

Design Manufacturing Distribution Use Support Retire

Internal External Reverse

Product Process Plant Production Repair Maintain Recycle Dismiss
logistic logistic logistic
Design Design Design

Requirement Detailed Prototype and

Concept
analysis Design Test

Source: Adapted from Terzi et al. (2007) and Kiritsis et al. (2008).

1.3 The meaning of PLM

The acronym, PLM, has been widely adopted and defined by different communities
(vendors-based, academic-oriented, end-users, etc.) with slightly different interpretations.
Stark (2005) highlighted how PLM is a holistic concept. Grieves (2005) has adopted the
‘cradle to grave’ definition. Saaksvuori and Immonen (2005) have investigated widely
the ICT perspective of PLM. Summing up, PLM can be broadly defined as a product
centric – lifecycle-oriented business model, supported by ICT, in which product data are
shared among actors, processes and organisations in the different phases of the product
lifecycle for achieving desired performances and sustainability for the product and related
services.
Consider a common product, e.g. car3 (Figures 3 and 4) in order to understand the
thesis of PLM. A car is a complex artefact with several designers and engineers involved
in its design chain. Its manufacturing is characterised by one of the most complex,
sophisticated and multilayered logistic chain. Also, the usage of a car involves many
actors in its service chain: not only a customer and a vendor, but also different service
suppliers, e.g. garages, maintenance shops, dealers, resellers, etc. Finally, the EOL of a
car is another complex phase with the automotive sector having one of the strictest
regulations about recycling and dismissal of car components. The lifecycle of a car leads
to an increasing amount of information, produced and used by a huge variety of actors,
inside and outside the company, in diverse functions, and at different levels of detail.
Each actor has its own perspective on the product: a part supplier might produce the right
part, a service supplier might know the right version of a component to be changed, a
product engineer might know the right drawings to be analysed, and a designer might
know the real customer needs.
A lifecycle model depends strongly on the product type, which affects enterprise
business processes. In fact, the product could be a complex long-life manufacturing
object (e.g. a car, a plane or a turbine), a complex short-life manufacturing object (e.g. a
PC, a CD player or a camera), a pharmaceutical specialty (e.g. a vaccine or an antibiotic),
366 S. Terzi et al.

a building (a house or a flat), a fashion garment, etc. The common goal is that, through
the PLM approach, integrated product data management (PDM) should be achieved to
have the right information at the right time and in the right place for delivering an
efficient service.
Another point that should be considered is related to product data storage, i.e.
dispersed in a galaxy of databases, sheets, files, drawings, notes, etc. inside and outside a
company (‘information silos’ for Grieves (2005)). Establishing effective PLM implies
reducing this galaxy to a coherent data flow, avoiding redundancies and gaps (Ibrahim
and Paulson, 2008). Thus, from the ICT point of view, PLM is an enterprise level
application by which all parts of the enterprise are affected. However, as can be inferred
from its broader implications, PLM is not a mere ICT problem. It is certainly a question
of data digitalisation (Grieves, 2005), where ICT not only plays a fundamental role (in
terms of tools, interoperability standards, architectures, etc.), but also it comprises
business processes (where data flow among actors/resources with relative competences,
inside and outside an organisation) and methodologies (practice and techniques adopted
along the business processes, using and generating product data). Methodologies,
processes and ICT are the three fundamentals of PLM that are involved along the
lifecycle phases of the product (Figure 5). They will be investigated in detail in Section 2.

Figure 3 Product data of a car4 (see online version for colours)

Customers feedback After sales service Marketing Concept designers

specifications

Processes

Maintenance

Prototypes

Costs Procedures Drawings

Production

Procurement
 Product lifecycle management 367

Figure 4 Product data of a car dispersed among many actors (see online version for colours)

Spare parts supplier

Recycling

Design supplier

Service supplier

Component supplier

Main Supplier
Co-designer

Figure 5 Fundamental elements of PLM (see online version for colours)

ICT
(tools,
interop. standards,
architectures, etc.)

BOL MOL

Product

Methodologies Processes
(human actors, skills,
(practices, procedures,
competences,
techiniques, etc.)
organisation, etc.)

EOL
368 S. Terzi et al.

2 Fundamental elements of PLM

2.1 Processes for PLM

A business process is a set of coordinated activities, which are distributed among
different actors, functions and departments of an organisation, oriented to the creation of
value in the extended enterprise. Physically, value derives from the product/service that
enterprises generate and sell. For the purposes of this paper, we consider two main
enterprise types based on a company’s response to the market:
x One-of-a-kind enterprises: in such companies, the main process responsible of the
value creation starts with the analysis of the needs of a specific customer. The
product is then designed specifically for the customer, produced, sold and supported.
This typology includes:
– large firms from the engineering and contracting sector (e.g. construction,
aerospace or naval industries), where the product development and realisation is
spread with many actors
– small firms producing highly customised and tailored products (e.g. tooling
machines, hot rod cars, etc.).
In this case, customers are closely involved in the creation process (design and
manufacturing). PLM can enable these enterprises to take into account the needs of
flexibility, responsiveness and efficacy.
x Many-of-a-kind enterprises: these companies provide their products to the market for
solving pre-identified needs at a larger scale. Within these companies, the creation
of value is actually defined by two processes:
– new product development (NPD) or new product introduction (NPI)
– operations management.
The first process involves all the activities that deal with the design and implementation
of production capacity, while the second generally addresses all activities needed for
managing production, transportation and distribution, including support services. Both
discrete manufacturing companies (e.g. automotive, textile, electronic, etc.) and process
industries (e.g. chemical, pharmaceutical, food, etc.) could work in such a way. In this
case, customers do not participate directly in the creation process. Enterprises have a
more structured way of working for improving process efficiency and PLM might
provide this kind of efficiency.
Nowadays both one-of-a-kind and many-of-a-kind enterprises are facing the same
globalisation effect, where competitiveness is increasing along with strong pressure on
cost and time reduction. PLM is providing solutions to the above-mentioned enterprise
typologies. In fact, PLM is able of managing large amounts of product data generated in
the various phases of the lifecycle in such a way to support efficiency, flexibility and
efficacy in the business processes. In the globalised market, this situation is emphasised
by the presence of many distributed companies and by the increasing requests of
innovation in short cycle time. Evidently, PLM encompasses a series of processes
depending by the level of application and implementation (e.g. Batenburg et al., 2006).
However, processes are managed, controlled, implemented and realised by human actors;
 Product lifecycle management 369

therefore PLM as every business model/approach should take into account a proper
understanding of the human impact and involvement. Human operators and decision
makers play their roles along the processes and a PLM project might take care of them,
enabling collaboration and cooperation without creating new barriers. Such collaborative
approach is the same essence of the success of PLM.

2.2 Methodologies for PLM

A methodology is a system of principles, practices and procedures applied to a specific
branch of knowledge. Methodology is sometimes used synonymously with method
and/or technique, indicating a body of rules, and postulates employed by a discipline. A
lot of different methodologies should be used in the PLM framework according to the
different needs of the various phases of product lifecycle (Terzi et al., 2005).
Methodologies operate on product data (that are themselves distributed along the product
lifecycle) to obtain specific results in the diverse stages of product life. Methodologies
generally not only require a large amount of information and product data that can be
provided by the PLM system but also they require human knowledge to be correctly
applied and used as already mentioned. From this point of view, as competences are not
resident in a single actor, a good level of collaboration and coordination among diverse
actors is necessary.
Generally, methodologies can be classified into four typologies:
x Procedures and techniques supporting designers and engineers in the development of
a product solution which is coherent with company’s goals and objectives. Some
examples are: theory for inventing problem solving (TRIZ, e.g. Altshuller, 1994),
quality function deployment (QFD, e.g. Akao, 1990; Hauser and Clausing, 1988),
value analysis and engineering (VA&E, e.g. Kaufman, 1990; Miles, 1961), design to
cost and target cost management (DTC/TCM, e.g. Michaels and Wood, 1989).
x Rules and procedures, based on past experiences, which indicate to their users
(generally designers and production engineers) how to consider needs and
constraints existing in the diverse product lifecycle phases. Some examples are
design for X (e.g. design for manufacturing, design for assembly, design for
maintenance, design for environment, to name a few of the declinations mentioned in
Huang (1996) and Boothroyd and Dewhurst (1993)), robust design, process
capability, modular design and platform design (e.g. Tseng and Jiao, 2000), design
for variety (e.g. Teck-Hua and Tang, 1998) and variety reduction program (VRP,
Koudate, 2003), clustering design (e.g. Ham et al., 1986).
x Techniques for the evaluation of the product responsiveness to needs coming from
diverse phases. Some examples are lifecycle analysis engineering and assessment
(LCA) (ISO 14040, 1997; Joshi and Dutta, 2004), risk analysis and failure modes
effects and criticality analysis (FMEA/FMECA, e.g. McDermott and Mikylak,
1996), fault tree analysis (FTA) and fishbone/Ishikawa diagram.
370 S. Terzi et al.

x Management approaches and rules supporting enterprise continuous improvement.

Main examples are within the production stage: just in time, lean manufacturing and
thinking, Six Sigma, total quality management and total productive maintenance
(e.g. Krajewski and Ritzman, 1999). More recently, the lean approach is also being
applied to the design stage (lean product development, e.g. Morgan and Liker, 2006).
Among methodologies, a special role is played by concurrent engineering (CE, Prasad,
1996), a management and operational approach which aims at improving product design,
production, operation and maintenance by developing environments in which personnel
from all disciplines (design, marketing, production engineering, process planning,
support, etc.) work together and share data throughout all phases of the product lifecycle.
During the 1980s, CE was proposed as a means to minimise product development time
(Barkan, 1988), and since then, many interpretations of CE have emerged in literature,
assuming a relevant role in the diverse ‘fashion curves’ of the industrial applications.
Many efforts have been spent since then with many successful and unsuccessful results.
At present, PLM has inherited main elements of CE that include using ICT to implement
its collaborative vision. (In other words, it can be stated that thanks to the development of
new ICT technologies, PLM has implemented the ‘theoretical’ CE concept). At the same
time, PLM is broader than CE, since it aims at the involvement of all the actors spread
along the product lifecycle, not only for the mere design phase.
Figure 6 summarises the main methodologies used along the product lifecycle (the list
is representative and not exhaustive): methodologies are classified based on their origins
(the arrows indicate the phase in which the methodology looks for content/contribution).
It is important to understand that the concept and practical implementation of PLM can
greatly benefit from the integration of computer aids/software tools, facilitating the use of
these methodologies as support tools for better management of product-related activities
(from design to manufacture to service, etc.).

2.3 ICT for PLM

ICT plays a unique role in PLM. PLM is made of several ICT tools, platforms and
systems. A special impact of ICT is on BOL phase with a huge variety of tools and
systems supporting the various design and development activities (Ulrich and Eppinger,
2001). MOL and EOL follow, typically with a minor ICT impact, even if newer
technologies and customer needs (e.g. intelligent product and improved product
traceability) are making ICT increasingly relevant in these phases.
Hereafter, ICT for PLM is briefly discussed from the point of view of:
1 ICT tools and systems.
2 ICT interoperability and architectures.
 Product lifecycle management 371

Figure 6 Map of methodologies in the product lifecycle

BOL MOL EOL

Design Manufacturing

TRIZ
QFD
VA&E
DTC/TCM
Modular Design
Robust Design
Risk Analysis
VRP

DFX

JIT
Six Sigma
TQM
FMEA / FMECA
TPM

LCA

2.3.1 ICT tools for PLM

PLM can be conceived to be composed of digital product definition and delivery (Stark,
2005). The adjective ‘digital’ implies that the tasks are based on computer models
processed with computer assistance. The majority of such tools belong to the design
phase, since most of the product data are generated at this phase.
Digital product definition forms the origin and core of PLM. Product definition itself
evolved from engineering drawings to computer-aided drafting tools. The advent of
computer control of machine tools was followed by the need for computerised models of
shape that can directly drive the manufacturing leading to the development of surface and
solid modelling systems (3D CAD). Subsequent developments (Figure 7) in features
technology allowed designers to create parametric shapes. Features also enabled the
designer to specify intent through constraints. Today’s CAD systems allow designers to
define product structure in the form of an assembly and variants of parts and support
association between the 3D model and the 2D drawings (Rachuri et al., 2008). This set of
tools is generally identified by the term authoring tools.
The push for digital product definition, originated by digital production, has been
largely reinforced by developments in computer-aided analysis (e.g. Momo and
Zucchelli, 1997). Computer-aided process planning (CAPP, e.g. Tulkoff, 1988) tools
support production engineers in their repetitive task, generating computer-aided
manufacturing (CAM) files for piloting NC machines. Computer-aided engineering
(CAE, e.g. Haug, 1989) tools, allowing complex domains to be analysed for structural,
372 S. Terzi et al.

thermal or other stimuli, have matured to such an extent that their penetration in the
product development cycle is, perhaps, larger than that of 3D CAD systems. Today, most
advanced CAD systems enable exchange of the shape models with CAE systems. Tools
are being developed to optimise the design subject to conflicting requirements (such as
crash worthiness and noise, vibration and harshness) in one pass. This has also enabled
designers to defer physical prototyping and testing to the very end and rely on digital or
virtual prototyping (VP) and simulation for much of the ‘design, make and test’ iteration.
Digital mockup (DMU, e.g. Rooks, 1998) forms an important element in VP.
Originally developed for the stakeholders in the product lifecycle who need to only
visualise the product shape (computer-aided styling (CAS)), the DMU now has
penetrated in applications beyond mere visualisation. The DMU is now used extensively
in manufacturing simulation – both of process and factory layouts; dealing with planning
for electric and fluid lines and for providing technical documentation. DMU has become
a reality due to the emergence of new light weight representation schemes that enable
concise models, as well as visualisation and interaction based on level of detail. Many
tools are available to interact with the DMU to measure, annotate and simulate. Virtual
reality (VR) rooms represent an augmented version of VP.
Rapid prototyping (RP, e.g. Jacobs, 1992) is the automatic construction of physical
objects using solid freeform fabrication. The first techniques for RP became available in
the late 1980s and were used to produce models and prototype parts. Today, they are used
for a much wider range of applications and are even used to manufacture production
quality parts in relatively small numbers. RP is also addressed as rapid manufacturing
(RM): the use of additive fabrication technology to directly produce useable products or
parts. Rapid tooling (RT) and rapid casting (RC) are specific derivations of RM/RP.

Figure 7 Map of authoring tools5 (see online version for colours)

CAM
RP
CAE
Process Design, RM
CAPP
CAD Engineering and Physical Model
Planning RT
RC
Model Creation

DMU
Digital CAS VR
Model Product Visualisation Virtual Model
VP

RE
Product Drawing
Capture Physical CAD
Object
 Product lifecycle management 373

Reverse engineering (RE, e.g. Chikofsky and Cross, 1990) is the process of discovering
the technological principles of a device, object or system by analysing its structure,
function and operation. The RE process involves measuring an object and then
reconstructing it as a 3D model. The physical object can be measured using 3D scanning
technologies such as laser scanners, structured light digitisers or computed tomography.
PDM – also known in the recent years as technical data management (TDM) or
engineering data management (EDM) – is basically a system for storing, archiving and
managing product engineering data (e.g. drawings and design objects) and related
workflows (e.g. Stark, 2005). PDM is a useful tool for structuring and maintaining the
engineering bill of material (BOM)– to be transformed in others’ BOMs, proper of other
enterprise functions (e.g. manufacturing, planning and after sales) – and to manage
product configurations and variants. It provides an efficient tool for supporting releases
and versions control and the engineering change process, generally defined by an
engineering change request (ECR) coming from the factory, an approved engineering
change order (ECO) and a notified engineering change notification (ECN). Generally, a
PDM system (Stark, 2005) is composed by:
1 an information warehouse or vault where product data are stored in a structured way
2 an information management module, responsible for system administration, data
accessibility, security and integrity, concurrent use of data, archiving and recovery
3 a workflow management module, to be used for defining workflows and registering
workflow histories
4 an user interface, supporting user activities (queries, reporting, etc.)
5 a series of system interfaces for programs such as CAD, CAE and ERP.
PDM processes can be automated, not only on trivial activities, but also in more
intellectual and value-adding phases, implementing knowledge-based engineering (KBE)
techniques (Harper, 1999), derived by knowledge management (KM) practices.
If CE can be considered the genesis of PLM from a ‘philosophical’ point of view,
PDM (and its diverse synonymous), as the operative backbone of PLM, can be
considered its genesis from a software point of view. Generally, data management tools
like PDM are addressed as collaborative product definition (CPD) systems (e.g. Rouibah
and Ould-Ali, 2006). The set of authoring (CAx) and CPD tools are typically installed in
R&D and engineering departments for supporting the product development process.
However, in its wider application, PDM systems could easily provide product data to
diverse enterprise functions (e.g. manufacturing) and also outside the enterprise
boundaries (providing product data to design and manufacturing suppliers).
2.3.1.1 Relationship between PLM and ERP Tools to support enterprise operations
evolved simultaneously with the design-centric PLM tools discussed in the previous
section. The first operations-related activities supported by ICT tools have been in the
area of production. Since the end of the 1970s, ICT systems evolved through the
development of material requirements planning (MRP), MRPII, capacity requirement
planning (CRP), into the larger ERP tools that integrate and support many activities, such
as financing, accounting and inventory management. As markets have evolved and
outsourcing has become dominant within the last decade, some ICT tools have become
more important than ever. These include: supply chain management (SCM) for
improving relations with suppliers, customer relationship management (CRM) for
374 S. Terzi et al.

managing customers and their requests, advanced planning systems (APS) for improving
multisite production scheduling. Such tools have formed the core of the ERP world
enabling extensive management of such company functions. Furthermore, in the recent
times, manufacturing execution system (MES) for automating, controlling and integrating
the manufacturing process at the execution level has been connected to ERP, thus
integrating the shop floor level functions with the upper level functions of ERP systems.
A channel for feeding back information from manufacturing to design is also provided by
MES tools. Such tools are increasingly consolidated in large ICT platforms. Web
technologies are drastically reducing costs and improving collaborative capabilities in
these platforms, enhancing B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer)
phenomena. ERP and ERP-like systems also support the digital product delivery process.
The main difference with digital engineering tools or current ICT tools for PLM lies
in the way ERP systems work (Grieves, 2005). ERP is basically a transactional system,
where transactions occur continuously (an order arrives, a job is done, a supplier is
solicited, etc.). In other words, ERP supports repetitive tasks, typical of manufacturing
and operations stages, while authoring and PDM tools support recursive and iterative
intellectual activities that are usually non-transactional. ERP systems can therefore be
considered as a part of the overall PLM vision, since – even if a way different from
CAx – they work with product data (e.g. BOM is necessary to run a MRP) and they
generate product data (e.g. product delivery dates).
The current relationship between PLM and ERP depends according to the company
processes and can be captured schematically as shown in Figure 8. Within companies
dominated by the product definition process (e.g. in tailored productions), the design-
centric PLM assumes a dominant role; then authoring and CPD tools and system are
installed. On the other hand, within contexts dominated by the product delivery process
(e.g. in turbulent sectors, like fashion and/or textile), ERP (and ERP-like platforms)
seems to dominate the design-centric implementations of PLM.

Figure 8 Area of PLM vs. ERP importance

 Product lifecycle management 375

2.3.1.2 Relationship between PLM and identification technologies ICT has been
traditionally more dominant in the BOL phases as compared to the MOL and EOL
phases. However, diverse enterprise applications taking care of product data from the
‘field’ do exist (like, e.g. CRM systems which take care of customers’ information). Also,
systems gathering data from after sales, maintenance and repair support systems (e.g.
computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) or lifecycle assessment (LCA),
tools) are available. These systems are resident within the enterprise boundaries
providing support to activities in MOL and EOL phases. Furthermore, with RFID and
auto-ID technologies, it is increasingly possible to trace a single product along its real life
outside the factory doors (Kiritsis et al., 2008). For example, Figure 9 shows the model of
interaction between a real product, the PLM system and a PLM agent for gathering
information from the product during the MOL and EOL phases of lifecycle. A PLM
agent is an ICT system, responsible for gathering product lifecycle information from each
product at a fast speed, using mobile devices such as a personal digital assistant (PDA) or
fixed readers with built-in antenna. Information gathered at each site (e.g. retail sites,
distribution sites and disposal plants) is sent to a PLM system that can provide lifecycle
information or knowledge (made by PLM knowledge agents) whenever requested by
related persons and organisations.
Finally, Figure 10 classifies diverse tools along the product lifecycle qualitatively.
Tools and systems are mapped in terms of their orientation to product management or to
process management.

Figure 9 Model for gathering life information from products (see online version for colours)

Product
Info PLM agent
Data

Product
Embedded
Information
device (PEID)

PLM system

Source: Kiritsis et al. (2008).

376 S. Terzi et al.

Figure 10 Mapping of ICT tools along the product lifecycle

ERP

Process APS,
CRM SCM
PDM, TDM, KBE MES LCA tools
CMMS

Product CAE, CAPP. CAM

CAD RP, RT, RC, RM

Design Manufacturing

Beginning of Life Middle of Life End of Life

2.3.2 ICT interoperability and architectures

If PLM as a solution has to include all phases in the product lifecycle and all the
stakeholders, then the exchange of data and information between the different phases and
stakeholders becomes a critical element of PLM. The exchange of product information as
opposed to data alone is a key differentiator of PLM over the approaches of the past. The
motivation being that if product information is exchanged among the different phases, it
is possible to have knowledge-based solutions in each phase for reasoning about process
needs and to arrive at optimised decisions. Exchange of product data has undergone
considerable evolution since the days of annotated engineering drawings. Several
typologies of standards support have been proposed which are relevant to PLM [6]. They
can be classified as the following way:
x According to the addressed stages of the product lifecycle:
– product development
– product production
– product use
– product identification linked to product lifecycle traceability.
x According to their scope:
– PLM commercial best practices and specifications
– specific applications
– standardised data models to represent product data
– domain-specific issues.
x According to their origin:
– open standards
 Product lifecycle management 377

– industry standards
– de facto standards (widely accepted and used, resulting generally from
widespread consensus).
x According to their development process:
– de facto standards
– regulatory standards (created by regulatory agencies to ensure uniformity in
processes that are not driven by market forces)
– consensus standards (developed or used by voluntary consensus Standard
Development Organizations (SDO)).
x According to their intent in ensuring that materials, products, processes,
representations and services are fit to the purpose:
– measure or metric standards
– process-oriented or prescriptive standards (which provide tests in a consistent
and repeatable way)
– performance-based standards (where process is not specified but the ultimate
performance is)
– interoperability standards (where process and performance are not explicitly
defined, but a fixed format is specified).
Although many standardisation efforts complement each other, in some cases, current
standardisation efforts are inefficiently repeated, creating a proliferation of standards. The
volume of standards from which to choose is often a source of confusion for users. This
problem is especially pressing in the case of PLM where the diversity of data and its
distribution in time and place requires a large number of standards and where there are a
plethora of standards from which to choose. It is believed that as the type and scope of
the standards needed for PLM support becomes clearer, there will be increased need for
standards harmonisation in addition to – and possibly in place of – further standards
development.
Just to mention the Standard for the exchange of product data model (STEP),
formally ISO 10303, evolved to integrate all geometric and non-geometric data in a
useful and meaningful way to represent product content model, so that the complete
description can be exchanged between CAD systems. STEP is at present the most
comprehensive standard to address the needs for exchange of geometric data. A major
advantage of STEP is that it is possible to develop standards for exchange of data
between different domains in the product lifecycle. Product life cycle support (PLCS) is
another ISO STEP standard (ISO 10303-239) that enables the creation and management
through time of an assured set of product and support information (APSI), which can be
used to specify and control required support activities throughout a complex product life.
In this context, semantic interoperability is an important issue to be considered.
378 S. Terzi et al.

Semantic interoperability is the ability of two or more computer systems to exchange

information and have the meaning of that information accurately and automatically
interpreted by the receiving system. It implies the existence of a common and shared
understanding of the meaning underlying the information, i.e. being exchanged. To
achieve perfect semantic interoperability, all communicating systems must use symbols
and definitions that are identical or can be accurately translated. Thus, a common
ontology is the ideal solution for semantic interoperability. Ontology and its use in
modelling knowledge have been studied extensively in the context of artificial
intelligence and linguistics. In recent times, a big thrust came from research aimed at
enhancing the web to what is referred as the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web is an
evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which web content can be expressed not
only in natural language, but also in a format that can be read and used by software
agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily. Several
ontology description languages have emerged that are now in the process of being
standardised. Resource description format (RDF) along with its extension RDF Schema
(RDF-S) was the initial standards. The web ontology language (OWL) extends RDF-S by
providing additional vocabulary along with a formal semantics.
It is also important to understand the increasing relevance of open standards and
source models. Open source models seem to address large scale distributed design of
complex products. The major success of open source comes
1 from the recognition of the scale and diversity of skills through modular design
2 the minimising of the costs of bad local decisions
3 the ability to mobilise people of diverse skills.
Standards for other aspects such as traceability, validation, verification and other audit
and archival functions will have to be considered in the support system for PLM. A good
example is the open archival information system (OAIS) reference model which
facilitates a much wider understanding of what is required to preserve and access
information for long term. Publications of information technology providers, end users
and engineering consultants also are contributing to the definition of such open standards
for accommodate legacy systems and new ICT technologies.
Figure 11 summarises the main interoperability standards along the product lifecycle.
The map classifies standards according to their main scope and content: product, process
or enterprise service. The horizontal axis represents the product lifecycle with the major
stages or phases identified. The vertical axis represents three complementary aspects of
the information. It is clear from the figure that there is no standard that provides full
coverage of the PLM support spectrum. Also, note that standards such as SysML and
PSL cover aspects of PLM with notable discontinuities in scope.
 Product lifecycle management 379

Figure 11 Map of interoperability standards in the product lifecycle

Enterprise
service ebXML, ESB, SLA, EDI

PSL SCOR
Process
PAS 55
SysML
STEP PLCS

Product DXF, MIMOSA

IGES STEP AP 203, AP214,
AP224, AP233

Design Manufacturing

Beginning of Life Middle of Life End of Life

Source: Adapted from Rachuri et al. (2008).

3 The role of PLM in the current industry

PLM is a term which is used and will be used by different communities and stakeholders.
In this paper, PLM does not imply just a covering of existing concepts, but expresses a
new, multilayered, multisystem architecture, relying on and providing a consistent
combination of product centricity and lifecycle perspective. This perspective is expressed
in detail in the following sections by analysing the role of PLM within the three different
lifecycle phases.

3.1 PLM in the BOL phase

Essentially, BOL phase deals with product design and manufacturing. These two
activities are intrinsically different. Product design is a recursive and iterative intellectual
activity that involves designers and engineers finding solutions for given problems. On
the contrary, manufacturing is a repetitive transactional-based activity, primarily focusing
on concretising a decision taken by others. Designers and engineers are generally
measured in terms of efficacy, while manufacturing actors are generally measured in
terms of efficiency.
During BOL phase, PLM plays the role of a design support system (Figure 12):
product design data is created and managed efficiently in order to be distributed at the
right time in the right context to ensure efficient manufacturing. MOL and EOL phases
can provide useful information, obtained by analysing field data, to this phase.
During BOL, information management is enabled by systems such as CAx authoring
tools and CPD platforms. Early PDM systems were limited to manage engineering
information such as geometric models, BOM and finite element analysis (FEA) models
and did not support non-engineering functions such as sales, marketing and SCM. In
recent times, CPD systems have been supplemented with new functionalities such as
change management, document management, workflow management and project
management that enabled CE and have improved the efficiency of product development
380 S. Terzi et al.

processes more efficient. In the 1990s, CPD systems with web-enabled front-end were
developed and these enabled supplier integration. Correspondingly, the first wave of
enterprise applications such as ERP, CRM and SCM was introduced with the aim of
improving the business side of the organisation. However, CPD systems designed
specifically for handling engineering data did not integrate with ERP-like systems for a
while.
All these systems form parts of the overall PLM concept. Due to its historical
evolution, PLM, in the modern era is sometimes defined by a list of ICT systems and is
interpreted as a ‘system of systems’. Commercial suites tagged as ‘PLM systems’ now
exist and seek to integrate solutions for enterprise business processes and product
development processes in particular. However, a comprehensive, well-accepted,
commercial PLM tool is not yet available and probably it will not be also in the future.
Existing PLM systems expand the functionalities of traditional CPD platforms from a
technological perspective providing a shared data platform for the creation, organisation
and dissemination of product-related information across the extended enterprise. Not
surprisingly, vendors generally defined as ‘PLM suppliers’ come from three diverse
backgrounds and are adopting strategies to expand their past foci. These include:
1 vendors, e.g. Siemens and Dassault Systèmes, from the digital engineering world
trying to connect to the operations management processes
2 vendors, e.g. SAP and Oracle from the ERP world attempting to connect to digital
manufacturing and engineering tools and platforms
3 vendors, such as Windchill, from the generic ICT world aiming at establishing
collaborative environments for integration, basically using web technologies.
All the PLM suppliers are continuously and rapidly expanding and solidifying their
offerings via mergers and acquisitions of niche companies. At the same time, a
monolithic PLM system supporting all the processes of BOL phases to the complete
satisfaction of every user is not currently available and will probably not exist in the near
future.

Figure 12 Model for BOL operations using MOL and EOL information (see online version
for colours)

BOL MOL EOL

Usage data
Maintenance history

Production status Updated BOM by repair

information Technical support information
Product lifetime
Design knowledge Updated customer requirements
Status of EOL product
Recycling / Reuse rate
Dismantaining information
Environmental effect information

A product
design / manufacturing
PLM system support
(a system of systems)
 Product lifecycle management 381

3.2 PLM in the MOL and EOL phases

The MOL phase deals with the ‘real life’ of the product, when it is in the customer’s
hands, while EOL deals with its ‘death’. During these phases, many actors interact with
the product: logistic service suppliers, customers, after sales service suppliers, recycling
service providers, etc. All these actors perform their repetitive activities, however, at
present, they do not exchange much information with other actors.
During MOL and EOL phases, PLM is primarily a service support system (Figures 13
and 14) and can be interpreted as a system of systems. Product data are collected from the
field in order to monitor and control the life status of the product. Information from BOL
phase is needed to analyse and understands behaviours and structures of the product.
In the modern era, PDM during these two phases has become unavoidable, primarily
due to global regulations and legislations focusing on issues, such as customer safety and
sustainability. In particular, this is already important in process industries, i.e.
pharmaceutical, food and beverage, etc. In spite of the increasing interests of normative
offices, information content and flow is largely incoherent and incomplete during MOL
and EOL phases. For the majority of today’s products, e.g. consumer electronics,
household machines and vehicles, it is fair to say that the information flow breaks down
after the delivery of product to the customer. As a consequence, actors involved in each
lifecycle phase make decisions based on incomplete and inaccurate product lifecycle
information from these phases, even if these might lead to operational inefficiencies. For
example, no efficient tools are available to gather product lifecycle data during the MOL
phase. Yet, several companies try to use whatever information they can gather or, at
times, guess from this phase. Currently, some software for supporting specific activities,
e.g. maintenance and after sales supporting tools, are available; but, they work
independently, and a comprehensive system has been evasive.

Figure 13 Model for MOL operations using BOL and EOL information (see online version
for colours)

BOL MOL EOL

Usage status information

Maintenance history Recycling and
BOM information
Reusing parts or
Product logistics information
Product order information component
information
Info for maintenance and service
Production system configuration

Embedded technologies
A product service Sensors and Tags
support
PLM system
(a system of systems)
382 S. Terzi et al.

Figure 14 Model for EOL operations using BOL and MOL information (see online version
for colours)

BOL MOL EOL

Product lifetime
Usage status information Status of EOL product
Maintenance history Recycling / Reuse rate

Disassambly information Updated BOM changing parts or Dismantaining information

components
Product data (materials, BOM…) Environmental effect information

Assembly information for re-

manufacturing

A product
recycling / dismiss PLM system
support
(a system of systems)

4 The role of PLM in the future society

In the current changing business environment, companies are seeking new ways of
providing maximum value to customers and gaining competitive advantage. As a
consequence, a stronger focus on product design and the entire PLM has emerged as a
critical area for the success of the modern industry. This change in value characteristics is
reflected in Figure 15, which emphasises the shift of company attention from the
manufacturing phase to the design and middle-end of life stages. The massive
investments of the past in just in time, total quality management and total productive
maintenance focused on the improvement of product cost, quality and time to market.
Nowadays they are no longer sufficient to gain competitive advantage. The focus, today,
is on innovation to ensure that the customer obtains holistic satisfaction from the product
that goes beyond the traditional definitions of product quality and cost. Issues, such as
environment, risk, lifecycle cost and quality of service are also important. Products have
changed their meaning and composition. A product is no more a mere artefact to be sold
for generating revenue, but a complex system, composed of tangible core (the physical
product) and a series of intangible assets like services provided to customers. This
corresponds to a definitive shift towards the product-service paradigm, where a product is
seen as being a part of the human society. However, the ability of industry to enable such
holistic products and supporting services is currently limited by the information gap in
the products lifecycle (i.e. the flow of information between the BOL phase and MOL–
EOL phases).

4.1 Closing the information loops

Product information flows are in most cases interrupted shortly after product sale. This
prevents the feedback of data, information and knowledge, from service, maintenance
 Product lifecycle management 383

and recycling activities back to designers whose design activities depend upon feedback
information flows to produce more competitive and sustainable products.
During the last years, we observe a general wish of many stakeholders in the product
supply and value chain (from designers to users and recyclers) to enable the seamless
flow, tracing and updating of information about a product after its delivery to the
customer and up to its EOL and back to the designer and producer. This is illustrated in
Figure 16 below, where dashed thick lines represent material flows along the product
lifecycle, including ‘recycling’ loops, while dotted lines represent information flow loops
(Kiritsis et al., 2003).

Figure 15 Change of importance of the product’s lifecycle stages in the company value creation
Past
Added Future
Value

Design Manufacturing Middle of Life End of Life

Source: Adapted from Ferguson and Browne (2001).

Closing of the product lifecycle information loops will have the following consequences
(Kiritsis et al., 2008):
1 producers will be provided with complete data about the modes of use and conditions
of retirement and disposal of their products
2 service and maintenance and recycling experts will be assisted in their work by
having:
a a complete and always up-to-date report about the status of the product
b real-time assistance and advice through the internet.
3 designers will be able to exploit expertise and know-how of the other players in the
product’s lifecycle and thus improve product designs towards product lifecycle
quality goals
4 recyclers/reusers will be able to obtain accurate information about ‘value materials’
arriving via EOL routes.
A closed-loop PLM system will allow all the actors who play a role during the lifecycle
of a product (managers, designers, service and maintenance operators, recyclers, etc.) to
track, manage and control product information at any phase of its lifecycle (design,
manufacturing, MOL and EOL) at any time and any place in the world.
384 S. Terzi et al.

Closed-loop PLM will contribute towards the modernisation of industry by improving

the quality of product information and ease of access to information at the design,
production, use and EOL stages. This will enable all stakeholders along the value chain to
not only eliminate sub-optimal phases, but also optimise on issues, such as cost, risk,
environment and efficiency among others across the whole product lifecycle. The market
trends towards customised products will require an enhanced knowledge-based lifecycle
with a great emphasis on the follow-up of the consumer information embedded in each
personalised product.

Figure 16 Closing the information loops (see online version for colours)

As a consequence, PLM is contributing in the future through a clear shift in the emphasis
from the BOL and MOL phases to embed the EOL areas. PLM is expected to ensure a
less resource intensive society and a more competitive industry through enablers such as
the following:
x improved product traceability, which is important for discovering manufacturing
errors and other quality-related issues and helps increasing competitiveness
x improved traceability in logistics, which makes it possible to optimise stock
utilisation, thus reducing material waste and transport costs
x integrated knowledge-based services into products, offering competitive advantage
to modern industry
x improvement in material recycling by effective integration of the knowledge of
substances, manufacturer and other knowledge that facilitates material reuse
x knowledge-based methods that enable optimal use of resources (especially energy)
throughout the product lifecycle.
One of the drivers of realisation of the vision of PLM, in particular, providing improved
service quality and design of products will be the growth in product identification
technologies, such as radio frequency identification (RFID). These technologies enable
 Product lifecycle management 385

products to have embedded information devices, e.g. RFID tags and onboard computers,
which makes it possible to gather lifecycle data of products at any time and at any place.
Thus, there is the possibility of different actors can access, manage and control product-
related information across different phases of the lifecycle. Especially, the information
after product delivery to customers and up to its final destiny could be gathered without
temporal and spatial constraints. This way, BOL information related to product design
and production can be used to streamline operations of MOL and EOL. Furthermore,
MOL and EOL information will be provided more easily to designers and engineers to
enable better BOL decisions. Recently, the concept of closed-loop PLM was further
generalised to the concept of closed-loop lifecycle management (CL2M) (CL2M, 2009).
Closed-loop PLM or CL2M in general is becoming a fact in various industrial sectors and
business in general. The trend is for more integrated systems including software and
systems equipped with product embedded information devises (PEID) that provide real-
time information to higher level information management systems.
The overall set of methodologies, tools and technologies including CL2M that PLM
offers to the product lifecycle stakeholders promises the business proposition of creating
value by transforming information to knowledge at all phases of the product lifecycle
(Garetti et al., 2005), thus improving product and service quality, efficiency and
sustainability.
In the coming years, the use of internet-of-things (IoT) technologies will be extended
to a wide variety of applications through generalised tagging of products (or ‘things’).
These wider applications almost inevitably include the involvement of consumers and
users beyond the traditional interpretation of existing PLM to promote holistic
information exchange among designers, producers, users and recoverers of future
complex products. Therefore, the management of data and information flows and data–
information–knowledge (D–I–K) transformations all along the lifecycle of products will
involve more and more consumers/users and service providers’ interactions.
Within the above context, research and development will be required to solve the
following problems/challenges:
x How a seamless link between consumers/users and designers/producers of ‘things’
can be realised in almost ‘real-time’? How this may happen when service providers
are involved (e.g. in maintenance) in this communication loop?
x What are the social consequences of such relationships between consumers/users and
designers/producers and collaborating service providers? How this new social
context may contribute to move our societies towards a ‘sustainable production and
consumption’ paradigm?
x What are the most appropriate business models to support such changes? How the
involvement of consumers/users in the value chain of ‘things’ lifecycles may be
taken into account?
Closed-loop PLM is expected to become the ‘system of systems’ where digital factory
tools will interface with the emerging IoT and internet-of-services solutions and will be
the catalysator for new optimised and efficient processes, human friendly manufacturing
and also new business models.
The advent of these technologies will support sustainability, one of the topics where
PLM will be able to spread out more and more its efficiency in the next years.
Sustainability can be defined as the ability to meet the needs of the present without
386 S. Terzi et al.

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland
Commission, 1987). It has an important global dimension and most of the major
challenges it involves cannot be solved in one isolated region of the world. The ‘way of
life’ of the so-called civilised world is made of several products, consuming a large
amount of global resources. It is based on products (for living, for transportation, for
dressing, for eating, etc.), which might be designed, manufactured, used, maintained,
recycled or dismissed. However, global sustainability indicators show clearly that the
current patterns of mass production of cheap goods and over consumption of products
with a short use cannot be sustained indefinitely. Evidently, sustainability is a social
responsibility, but achieving it is challenging due to several implementation issues that
can be overcome through effective PLM, because optimisation of resources while
maintaining quality of product and related processes is strongly correlated to the creation
and use of product knowledge.
In summary, it is expected that PLM will support value creation in the society
through enablers in the following areas:
x Technical: optimal accomplishment of the expected functions covering the user’s
expressed and unexpressed needs, exploiting field knowledge gathered through the
product lifecycle.
x Economical: creation of value for the producer, for the service provider and for the
product owner.
x Social: delivering comfort, safety, security and satisfaction to the product user
(e.g. the passenger of a bus, the user of an elevator, etc.).
x Environmental: minimisation of pollution, of resources and energy consumption by
applying optimal BOL, MOL and EOL planning.

5 Conclusions

PLM incorporates a product centric vision enabled by the adoption of advanced ICT
solutions fostering collaboration among many actors and organisations. Adopting a PLM
approach signifies, at first, understanding the role of information within the extended
enterprise along the value-creation chain.
This paper has discussed how the roots of PLM can be traced back to the traditional
one-man ‘cobbler’ industry. The current state of PLM focuses primarily on the BOL and
MOL phases, but the agenda for the future is expected to include and address broader and
emerging issues from the EOL phase.
To ensure effective realisation of the vision of PLM, the focus for the future has to
develop technical enablers to link ICT to the complementary methodologies used within
businesses. As the foundation for PLM is being laid, it should be accompanied by the
development of effective decision-support tools that use the available information to
ensure that PLM can be used to provide a greater strategic benefit.
The future of PLM will focus on ensuring that the original ‘cobbler’ model scales up
to develop and use a business strategy for creating and sustaining a product-centric
knowledge environment that spans the entire lifecycle and the extended enterprise as a
part of the society.
 Product lifecycle management 387

Acknowledgements

This paper derives from a joint initiative promoted by the PLM Interest Working Group
(PLM IWG) founded in 2007 after the PLM’07 International Conference. In 2009, PLM
IWG became the foundation of a new group, active under the umbrella of IFIP
(International Federation of Information Processing), specifically IFIP WG 5.1 (Global
Product Development in the whole lifecycle). The authors of the present version of this
paper want to thank all the original contributors of this first PLM IWG initiative, namely
P.D. Ball (Cranfield University, UK), B. Gurumoorthy (Indian Institute of Science in
Bangalore, India) and S. Han (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology,
Korea). Moreover, the authors want to thank all the practitioners and the scientists that
have contributed to the improvement of the preliminary version of this paper with their
personal contents, comments and suggestions. Namely: R. Bandinelli (University of
Florence, Italy), A. Codrino (PLM Systems, Italy), M. Langlotz (University of
Kaiserslautern, Germany), G. Liotta (Institute of Industrial Technologies and
Automation, National Research Council of Italy), M.Z. Ouertani (University of
Cambridge, UK), L. Patil (University of Michigan), V. Srinivasan (IBM and Columbia
University, New York, USA) and K.D. Thoben (Bremer Institut für Produktion und
Logistik, Universität Bremen, Germany).

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Notes
1
ICT is the reference acronym generally adopted in Europe for defining information technologies
in their wide sense. In other geographical contexts, e.g. in the USA, the same concept is addressed
by the simplest acronym IT (information technology, without putting in evidence the role of
communication). In this paper, the European acronym (ICT) will be used.
2
In literature, the identification of product stages and lifecycle phases reveals at least two main
domains of analysis:
1 the domain of the market product phases (Vernon, 1966)
2 the domain of the ‘physical’ life of a product.
The first one is the well-known model which describes how a product ‘lives’ in the market in
terms of sold volumes and revenues (this kind of model has been studied in detail and its
suggestions are well-known and accepted in industries). On the contrary, this paper will not
consider the first kind of definition, but it will refer to the second domain definition (i.e. to how
the product ‘goes through’ its physical lifecycle phases of production, use and dismissal).
3
It is not a case that this example deals with a car. The automotive sector, with the aeronautical and
the military ones, has been one of the most relevant PLM markets since years.
4
Figures 3 and 4 derive from an original idea of Mr. Alberto Codrino, former CEO of PLM
Systems, a European consulting company active in the area of PLM. No publications have been
found for quoting the original idea.
5
Figure 7 derives from an original idea presented by Prof. Umberto Cugini, full professor of
Industrial Design at Politecnico di Milano, in his courses. No publications have been found for
quoting the original idea of prof. Cugini.

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