Product Life Cycle Management

Product life cycle management is a technique employed to integrate data, processes, business systems ,people and also provides information regarding the product for companies and extended enterprises. the PLM involves managing the whole lifecycle of the product right from inspection to disposal through designing, manufacturing and servicing. For shortening the gap that exist between reality and the objectives of organization, the management should implement proper strategies .these strategies depend on a variety of factors such as market conditions, resources available, data collection method used, documentation and assortment of optimal strategy ,communication within the organization, proper implementation and so on. Some of the PLM strategies

Some of the practices introduced where timely and improved interaction among users with the help of PLM tools, man hour evaluations and their appraisal, monitoring of resources where done online, Real time accounting, simulation runs on casting processes structural analysis, customer interaction inorder to collect data regarding the finalization and scheduling delivery plans, computer aided designing. Advantages of the PLM technology over convention Technologies are

Characteristics PLM Technology Conventional Technology

Ownership Simpler to keep track of the ownership of practices, product, processes and cost involved Difficult to keep track of the ownership of practices, product, processes and cost involved

Complexity Mass customization could be easily achieved as it is easier to modify information and product data to incorporate any levels of complexity Insufficient information and incomplete representations makes it difficult

Correspondence The availability of information and complete data regarding the physical product helps to attain high level of correspondence The unavailability of information and complete data regarding the physical products limits the level of

Reflectivity Recording the Information and data regarding the real product helps to achieve high fidelity Lesser fidelity in mapping

Data and information from real to virtual product

Security Provision of individual user names and passwords for each and every user results in high level of security The lack of individual user names and passwords makes it difficult to track the activities and has adverse effect on security

Education & Training The information and data regarding the product can be easily retrieved on demand thereby facilitating the training for a new comer Not easy to explain portfolio/data and information regarding the company product to a new comer

Cued availability Appropriate information and data regarding the product is readily available at any time even without the task of searching Large amount of time is wasted as the information and data regarding the products are not readily available

Traceability Easier to track the product information and data as it is being updated to the digital storage Higher risks of energy and time wastage as the data is not being recorded