Product Lifecycle Management Applications Research Articles

An ontology-based KBE application for supply chain sustainability assessment

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) plays a key role in digital transformation demanded by Industry 4.0 and life cycle assessment, including sustainability assessment. Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) applications can support PLM by integrating heterogeneous knowledge from different stages throughout the product life. However, the integration of knowledge from different stages and teams can cause misunderstanding if not represented in a unified form. Furthermore, different forms of knowledge used by different software are neither machine-readable nor human-readable, which also sets obstacles to knowledge integration in KBE applications. Supply chain sustainability assessment is such a scenario that entails integrating knowledge from different sources. This paper firstly implements a sustainability assessment method from other scholar to calculate the supply chain sustainability performance and adapts a sustainability assessment ontology for supply chain sustainability assessment. Then, an example KBE application is developed by implementing the sustainability assessment ontology and calculation method to simulate the knowledge sharing and integration between different teams. Finally, through this example application, it is discussed that the implementation of ontology to represent knowledge in PLM application for collaborative tasks like sustainability assessment can increase the efficiency of data sharing and integration. This paper is a proof of concept for the ontology-based framework. This framework can facilitate to represent knowledge but not create new knowledge, which means it can increase the efficiency of the software development, but can not provide a better calculation method and assessment framework for supply chain sustainability assessment. • An ontology-based application simulates the knowledge sharing and integration in sustainability assessment. • Ontology-based knowledge representation provides a unified and flexible data format. • Ontology-based knowledge representation makes a unified knowledge base possible. • Ontology increases the efficiency of data sharing and integration in collaborative tasks. • High-efficient software development contributes to supply chain sustainability management.

Engineering Change Management Data Modeling for Engineering Change Management Processes in Engineering Industries

Engineering Industries (EI), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Engineering Change Management project with the objective of reengineering several business processes and enabling the processes within PLM ‎ applications and DMS ‎ applications. The Project covers Engineering Industries (EI) such as Energy Devices , Telecom devices, automotive global design centers and manufacturing facilities. The design approach will be covering the Engineering industry’s single PLM ‎ system platform for entire Organization for design change. Fundamental project management discipline and tools will be used to control, execute, and monitor the EI ‎ implementation. All Scope Change Requests will require cost justification and approval of the EI Steering Committee. A monthly Risk Management Report will summarize the risks, identify the mitigating measures necessary and identify respective responsibilities for implementing them.

Sustainability consideration within product lifecycle management through maturity models analysis

Provided that product lifecycle management (PLM) is a complex system, many companies still cannot comprehend the whole amount of PLM benefits due to the lack of a full understanding of PLM functionalities. The present paper stems from an Italian industrial survey. It is aimed to investigate and collect PLM functionalities by studying PLM maturity models and TechnoWare, InforWare, FunctionWare, and OrgaWare (TIFO) framework. This paper also extends TIFO to TIFOS framework by adding SustainWare to achieve long-term maintenance of product lifecycle. AHP methodology is developed to help companies to choose right information in the right context and time by applying the proper functionalities of PLM. A research framework to measure sustainability is also proposed to identify PLM component’s sustainability level. The industrial cases conducted in two southern Italy companies prove that specific components of PLM application and business management contribute more to PLM benefits, and OrgaWare and InforWare are the weak points of the proposed framework. Sensitivity and consistent analysis show that the results are robust and accurate.

A Simulation Model for Product Lifecycle Management

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a systematic, controlled concept for managing and developing products and product related information. The aim of the paper is contributing in the definition of a software tool suitable to tackle this important issue. In order to specify a simulation module that is the core of an integrated PLM platform, we analyze and describe by the Unified Modeling Language (UML) the processes that are relevant for the generic PLM concepts. Moreover, the UML activities diagrams are translated in a discrete event simulation model in order to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the PLM system and to detect possible blockings or bottlenecks. Finally, a simulation study illustrates the efficiency of the module and shows how it can help in the PLM application.

PLM implementation guidelines – relevance and application in practice: a discussion of findings from a retrospective case study

In this paper, a recently conducted product lifecycle management (PLM) implementation project is analysed. The aims are to investigate whether published product lifecycle management (PLM) implementation guidelines are relevant to and used in practice, and, if so, to assess how useful they are for guiding project execution. This paper presents an examination of how a real PLM implementation project was conducted, mapping out the rationale for different courses of action and the effects they had. This paper evaluates the degree of relevance and application of existing PLM implementation guidelines. It is found that while most of the guidelines were highly relevant to the project, they were not applied in full. Potential reasons for why the guidelines are not followed are discussed. It is suggested that projects review their plans with the guidelines in mind, evaluating their degree of relevance and including a plan for how to apply the guidelines.

Moving to Midsize

This article elaborates the benefits of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for small-to-midsize businesses. A large number of small-to-midsize engineering and manufacturing operations are now bringing enterprise resource planning systems into their operations. ERP software is distinct from a product lifecycle management application, which is where engineers store information about the product they’ve defined. ERP systems link design and manufacturing with business processes such as new orders, purchasing, credit, accounting, supply chain management, and planning. They stretch from business headquarters across production facilities, warehouses, and sales offices. By linking these operations, ERP helps executives understand and forecast all the factors—from sales and purchases to asset utilization and hiring—that might affect profits. An ERP system offers control over all areas of the business in one centralized place. Several developments are now helping smaller companies make the transition: costs for ERP systems are coming down, implementation is becoming easier, and systems are targeted to smaller players.

Tangible digital master for product lifecycle management in augmented reality

We present a novel approach, called tangible digital master (TaDiMa), based on a flexible access to Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) database using a tangible/graphical user interface and augmented reality. We developed and tested a technical drawing template with automatically embedded markers for augmentation. We embedded the Mozilla FireFox engine into our annotation system for the integration of web 2.0 applications in the AR environment. We also extended the concept of web feed to PLM for notification of technical contents. We implemented a dynamic labelling management with view-driven filtering and placement. We also present a tangible management for layers visualization and users access by marked tokens. We validated the TaDiMa approach in a selection of possible scenarios for different PLM applications. The main benefit of the TaDiMa system is the easy and low-cost integration in the product lifecycle process.

Generic Modeling and Configuration Management in Product Lifecycle Management

The PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is often defined as a set of functions and procedures which allows one to manage and to exploit the data defining at the same time the products and the processes implemented for their developments. However, the installation of a PLM solution remains a difficult exercise taking into account the complexity and the diversity of the customer requirements as well as the transverse utilization of this solution in all the company’s’ functions. The issues faced by both editors and integrators of PLM applications arise from the specific aspect of customers’ projects, even tough most functional needs are often generic. In this paper we are focused on product modeling in PLM applications, more particularly on configuration management that traces product evolutions throughout its lifecycle. we will insist on the links between the configuration needs and the multi-view approach models and we release problems related to PLM applications deployment. Our work concerns the PLM generic solutions based on the concept of generic models. This generic model takes into account the configurations specification associated to the managed product and can be extended to cover specific needs.