Product Lifecycle ManagementAuthors:

• Dipl.-Ing. Antti Saaksvuori,
• Dipl.-Ing. Anselmi Immonen
• …show all 2hide
  

ISBN: 978-3-540-25731-8 (Print) 978-3-540-26906-9  (Online)

Preface
The significance of product lifecycle management (PLM – Product Lifecycle
Management, formerly referred to, in a narrower frame of reference, as
PDM – Product Data Management) is increasing, especially for companies
in the manufacturing, high technology, and telecoms industries. Product
and component lifecycles are shortening while, at the same time, new
products must be delivered to market more quickly than before. This leads
companies to form networks in which each actor specializes in the planning
or manufacture of products in a certain field. Information concerning
common products must pass quickly, faultlessly, and automatically between
companies so that they can compete effectively in international
markets.
In today’s industrial production, therefore, PLM – Product Lifecycle
Management – is an essential tool for coping with the challenges of more
demanding global competition and ever-shortening product and component
lifecycles. New and better products must be introduced to markets more
quickly, with more profit and less labor, and the lifecycle of each product
must be better controlled, for example from financial and environmental
perspectives. Fierce competition in global markets drives companies to
perform better. In order to perform well financially, companies must be
able to make informed decisions concerning the lifecycle of each product
in their portfolio. Winner products must be introduced to market quickly
and poorly performing products must be removed from the market. To do
this well, companies must have a very good command of the lifecycle of
each product. A good command of product and process definitions over a
large product portfolio requires that ways of operation and IT-systems
must support each other flawlessly.
Today’s complex products require the collaboration of large specialist
networks. In this kind of supplier and partner network, product data must
be transferred between companies in electronic form, with a high level of
information security. Overall, PLM can also be considered as a tool for
collaboration in the supply network and for managing product creation and
VI Preface
lifecycle processes in today’s networked world, bringing new products to
market with less expenditure of time and effort.􀀃
This book is intended as a manual of product lifecycle and product data
management. It will support PLM / PDM concept and system implementation
projects as well as providing ideas for developing product data and
product lifecycle management in businesses.
The book will be useful, for instance, to:
1. Product managers
2. Business managers
3. R&D organizations
4. PLM-projects and project-personnel in the companies, documenting
managers, product creation and R&D Organizations, sourcing
and procurement, after sales organizations, business development
organizations, IT-managers, IT- personnel
5. PLM-consultants
6. After sales organizations
7. Educational organizations
8. University students
The book deals with the term PDM in its wider significance: the context in
which the proper modern term or acronym is PLM – Product Lifecycle
Management. We think of PDM, or Product Data Management, as a useful
tool for controlling product-related information as well as the lifecycle of a
product.
The two acronyms PDM and PLM are closely associated; the main difference
is one of scope and purpose. Whereas PDM is mainly a set of tools
and methods aimed at efficiently managing product data, PLM is a holistic
approach that uses a wide range of different concepts, technologies, and
tools, which extend to groups beyond the functions of a company or even a
supply network in order to manage and control the lifecycle of a product.
The starting point for this book has been that PDM really covers the
whole lifespan of the product and the whole spectrum of product data. It is
not concerned only with product-related CAD files. We are using the term
PLM – Product Lifecycle Management – to describe the wider frame of
reference of product data. PLM, in this book, refers to this wider totality,
especially with the aim of settling the continuously changing and flickering
terminology of the field.
Preface VII
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 cover the fundamentals and concepts of product
lifecycle management and terminology. Chapter 5 considers the different
roles of information processing systems within the company from the
viewpoint of product information management. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 survey
the deployment and completion of implementation projects for PLM systems;
case examples concretize the use of systems in companies making
different kinds of products. Chapters 9, 10 and 11 envisage PLM concept
from a markedly wider perspective, thinking in terms of the development
of the business. The final chapter considers the significance of cooperation
or collaboration between companies and the role of PLM in this.