Product Life Cycle Management

Product life cycle management is a business strategy that enables manufacturers to control and share product-related data as part of product design and development efforts and to support supply chain operations. This is very important for companies in today’s culture. PLM allows companies to centralize their management of all the products’ data.

There are four phases of the product life cycle;
· Conceive
· Design
· Realize
· Service

Each of these phases has different technologies that go along with it and that must be implemented at each stage. Stage one is when a company plans and designs their PLC. Stage two sets in stone what the company wants to do. The company develops and tests the product before releasing it to the market. The third stage occurs when the company manufactures, markets, and sells their product to their consumers. And the final stage occurs when the company maintains the product, does repairs, and the product is eventually phased out.

There are several different companies that offer PLM tools such as IBM, SAP, EDS, Matrix, and PTC. Many of these models allow record keeping, billing, and document tracking. Each company can pick a model that will be the most beneficial for their structure and their needs.

PLM can have a significant impact on several areas of a company. It can benefit cycle timing, design changes, and productivity. It is also a big jump for a company. Integrating different processes within an organization can be time consuming, difficult, and expensive but the benefits outweigh the negatives. The main goal is to move information through an organization as quickly as possible to reduce the time it takes to get a product to the market and to increase profitability.

One of the main problems that many companies are facing is that they are trying to get products to the market too fast and there are many problems that have occurred as a result. Companies are trying to get their products to the market and are not making sure that the second step of their PLM is complete. As a result, this is costing them a great deal of money. An article relating to this is pasted below.

http://www.industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=17441&SectionID=2