Case Study on the Relation of PLM Maturity, Architecture and Business Processes

Abstract

Abstract.A study focusing on the three factors of product lifecycle management (PLM) is being presented. The selected factors are maturity of adoption, systems' architectures and product lifecycle (PLC) related businesses. The research material comes from six globally operating companies. The applied data collection method is the synthesis of interviews, benchmarking, and peerreviewing the case companies. The material is analyzed with the application of comparative case study method. Modern PLM systems manage the data of fixed product items and the configuration knowledge of product families. Thus, companies with the most mature PLM approach are able to enhance the product configuration oriented business processes with legacy PLM architectures. Most of the studied companies are transforming their to single source architecture. This may be a challenge for some of the businesses. Another challenge is the increasing share of service related PLC businesses, which is also supported by the most mature PLM approaches. IntroductionProduct lifecycle management (PLM) was being studied through the analysis of six industrial cases. The focused factors of PLM were the maturity of PLM, business types and PLM systems' architectures. Motivation was to find out the potential combinations of factors in the above. The research questions of the paper are: what kind of business processes are the main customers of PLM, how mature is the PLM approach and what kind of changes are taking place in PLM architectures of case companies? The paper continues with literature review, which substantiates the research approach and outlines the details of the factors, which serve as a means of analysis. The research method is outlined and results presented. The conclusions summarize the findings, estimate the effects of the changes in the architectures of PLM systems and compare the aspired situation with the overall diversity of business processes taking place in the case companies. 2Three PLM Factors: Maturity, Business and Systems Architecture PLM is the activity of managing products effectively across their lifecycle [Stark 2004] or a strategic business approach, which applies business solutions, collaborative

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