Product Lifecycle

Management
PLM or PLCM
Defining PLM
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is an
integrated, information-driven approach
comprised of people, processes/practices, and
technology, to all aspects of a product's life,
from its design through manufacture,
deployment and maintenance—culminating in
the product's removal from service and final
disposal.

PLM is the business activity of managing in the most

effective way, a company’s products all the way
across their life cycle; from the very first idea for a
product all the way through until it is retired and
disposed of.
 Historical view of Product
>150 years ago:
Lifecycle
Designer managed productManagement
data (drawings etc.),
Only the designer could understand this data…

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Ornithaptor (flying machine)

 Historical view of Product
~100 years ago
Lifecycle
The Drawing Management
Board : Engineers could communicate using a
common language, Engineering Drawings
 Historical view of Product
~30 years ago
Lifecycle
The computer: 2D becomesManagement
precise and modifications are
easy… 2D CAD
Historical view of Product
Lifecycle Management
But… Problems with 2D CAD

-- 2D does not represent the

reality
-- 2D cannot model surfaces &
solids
-- 2D is subject to
misinterpretation
 Historical view of Product
Lifecycle Management
~1985
3D CAD: allows defining complex parts and assemblies
 Historical view of Product
Lifecycle Management
~1995
3D CAD: allows analysis
 Historical view of Product
Lifecycle Management
~1995
Digital Mockup (DMU) replaces physical prototypes

Boeing 777:
• First jetliner to be 100 percent digitally designed using 3D CAD
• > 3 million parts, > 900 suppliers from 17 countries
• Max alignment error on the first 777 was 0.023” (other planes: ~0.5”)
 Historical view of Product Lifecycle
Management
~2000: Knowledge-Based CAD to support collaboration:
Store the know-how  share design rules
PLM Life Cycle Model
Plan (Imagination Phase)

 Product is just an idea in people’s head.

 It is an initial step in developing any product. What
are the function product must perform? What are
the requirement that the product must meet?
 In some cases, these requirements are obtained
directly from the customers who is buying the
products.
 These requirements are mapped into specification.
Design (Definition Phase)
 Ideas are converted in detailed description.
 The requirement mentioned are taken up by
concept engineering & prototyping.
 The functional requirements can be
combined in different ways so that each
parts required fro a number of operation
can vary.
 Next step is product engineering, take these
functional design & prototype and turns
them into exact specification.
Build (Realisation Phase)

 The product exists as final.

 Once the product is fully specified, it is the role of
manufacturing engineering to determine how
the product must be built, sequence of
operations.
 In manufacturing new product, there are two
case:-
 building in new plant
 Use existing plant
 The manufacturing and production stage is
when the rest of the products are made.
 Support (Use/ support phase)

 The product is with the customer

 The sales and distribution function uses the

production information to
1) To tell the buyer and user of the product,
what functions and specification of product
are.
2) To keep the product performing to those
expected specification
Dispose (Retire phase)
 The product is no longer useful.
 The final aspect is disposal & recycling,
close out the product life.
 The cycle starts over again with next
version of the product.
Phases of PLM

 First 3 phase plan, design and build is

Beginning of Life (BOL)
 Use/ support and maintenance is
Middle of Life ( MOL)
 Retirement, disposal and recycling is
End of Life (EOL)
 Threads of PLM
The technology threads that have gone into
forming PLM are
1. Computer Aided Design (CAD)
2. Engineering Data Management (EDM)
3. Product data Management ( PDM)
4. Computer integrated Manufacturing (CIM)
Computer Aided Design
(CAD)
 They are the math based description of the
physical representation of products
 Use to represent the product in 2D or 3D.
 These systems started out as simple drawing
systems to aid the designer in producing faster &
more accurate drawings
 CAD representation are the heart of PLM
 More precision than manual drawing
 Easy to share the drawings through internet.
 They are be extracted to perform other function
such as Finite element analysis.
Engineering Data
Management ( EDM)
 Math based specification from CAD define the
product from geometry perspective, but not fully
describe them
 Characteristic of product such as tensile strength,
weight, tolerance etc. have to be described.
 Also the process of building and methodology
involved in manufacturing product has to be given

 Above are the focus of EDM

 Eg:- Bill of Material (BOM) which describe the product
rather than its geometry
 Product data management (PDM)
 It was developed to organize CAD & EDM
 Information was replaced from paper format to
electronic form
 Data could safely and effectively be organised,
maintained and accessed in digital form.
Computer integrated
manufacturing ( CIM)
 Idea that a computer system could
integrate the function necessary to
design, engineer and manufacture a
product.
 It is a advance data that would drive the
machines on the factory floor.
 Need for PLM
1. Communication between the department is
slowing down
 In workplace, Completion of task is dependent on
the completion of other task in a never ending
loop.
 Hours or days could lapse before an employee
realizes that a project is ready to move forward
 If we sum all the waste time, it could worth couple
of week
 Using PLM, once the task is completed, it is instantly
visible to all the right people.
Need for PLM
2. Disorganisation makes locating data difficult
 Saving items in multiple locations, having
duplicates , making changes without updating.
 These all mistakes can add up when it comes to
overall organisation.
 Storing and creating information in one data base,
the information is visible to all right people.
Need for PLM
3. Wasted time, processes are not efficient as they
could be
 Searching for and recreating data is a major time –
waster in workplace
 PLM eliminates the need for rework and extensive
searching since the information is accessed with
securities.
Need for PLM
4. Oversampling and wasted materials
 Say you design and procure clothes for winter. But
by the time reaches you, the season has ended
resulting in waste of resources, time and labour.

 PLM provide tool a designer needs to create a

visual for products before they are created.
 If demands decreases, it notify all the department
to cease all processes to that product.
Need for PLM
5. You have the desire to become the most efficient
and profitable company profile
 Even if business is strong, by choosing PLM doesn’t
mean defeat. All big companies uses PLM which
actually increases market by 30%
Opportunities and benefits
of PLM
 Opportunities of growing market.
 Technology opportunity
 Smart product opportunity
 Social and environmental opportunities for product
 Reduced prototyping cost
 Saving through complete integration of
engineering workflow
 Minimizing supply chain collaboration
 Create more innovative ideas
 Improve forecasting to reduced material cost
PLM visioning
 To provide clear and complete description and it
must be possible to communicate it without any
information loss
 A vision has to be created right at the beginning of
the activity
 PLM visioning will give more focus on identification
of parameter

 Different organization will have different PLM Vision.

PLM feasibility study
 It is an evaluation & analysis of the potential project,
i.e. PLM which is based on extensive investigation &
research to support decision making.
 Includes
1. Evaluation according to selected criteria
2. Summary of evaluation results (SWOT analysis)
3. Recommendation

SWOT :- S = strength, W = weakness, O = opportunities,

T= threats