Product Lifecycle Management and Opportunities for Collaboration
Jinfo Blog

By Michael Smith

Abstract

Construction industry information specialist and chartered environmentalist, Michael Smith, introduces Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and outlines the benefits it can bring from overcoming geographical limits to reducing development costs and yielding smarter design decisions.

Item

Rapid, technological innovation and global reach requires information to be accessible to all project partners; suggesting a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategy which integrates people, processes and business systems into the workflow. PLM manages the flows of data and information during development, after sales support and maintenance in order to fully satisfy the customer needs.

A Central Hub

PLM and document libraries allow disparate communications systems access to knowledge about the product and to integrate the results of related research; they contribute the enabling technology and serve as a central hub to support collaborative design and development.

However, any such system of information management should make the data consistent, traceable and allow for long-term archiving.

Overcoming Geographical Limits

One of the principal industrial users of PLM has been the automotive industry, and an important methodology relating to this has been developed by Ford Motor Company.

Thus, the application of PLM allows companies to cross traditional boundaries and to enable collaboration which overcomes geographical limits.

Product information is created and managed by people, both internal (employees) and external (contractors, suppliers, partners, customers etc.). Each phase of the product lifecycle is executed by people involved in specific processes, and information generated by them is used to realise the end result in a coherent way.

Reducing Development Costs

Using PLM, development of a complex and knowledge intensive system can be carried out in a network of organisations working simultaneously to reduce the development cost of single products or services.

Because the product lifecycle can become fragmented, a high level of integration and collaboration is needed; and this can only be achieved by information professionals combining the activities of collaborating firms, allowing them to build channels between themselves where information and knowledge can be exchanged.

Substantial Savings

As an example: managing a construction project and building lifecycle using a Building Information Model (BIM), where several collaborating professions work together (architects, surveyors, engineers and contractors) can result in substantial savings, in both time and money, from design and construction through to ongoing maintenance.

Regardless of the industry, information is now an integral part of any process or service, and collaboration is the only way forward in achieving maximum efficiency. Only through engagement, integration, information sharing and realising opportunities can we proceed with any hope of reaching that goal.

Smarter Design Decisions

There are still organisational barriers to overcome; however, once these are eliminated, earlier and smarter design decisions will yield better, more accurate deliverables and cost models.

Data standards, established throughout industry and commerce, will begin to benefit all partners, system designs will improve through early project inception, and less time will be spent resolving conflicts resulting from information partitions.

Editor's Note

FreePint Subscribers can log in to read and share more in Michael's article, Information Support in the Product Lifecycle.

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