The Product Lifecycle Management Opportunity
Product lifecycle management is to product information what enterprise resource planning is to enterprise resource information, or customer relationship management is to customer information. It represents a new way to plan, organize, manage, measure, and deliver new products or services. Early on, this capability was known as product information management (PIM). However, its sole focus then was on product development activities, and associated processes generally were confined to an organization's four walls. Later, PIM evolved into CPC, or collaborative product commerce. Internet technology was the primary force behind CPC, helping companies bring external business partners into the product development loop.
But today's approach – product lifecycle management – is where PIM and CPC were headed all along. PLM's promise is an enterprise view of a product's complete lifecycle – from initial design concept through to retirement.
PLM may represent the first real opportunity to:
- Develop a single environment in which product content, process information, and program status information are fully integrated.
- Understand the precise status of a product at any stage throughout its life.
- Share product-related information among all internal factions and external business partners, including designers, suppliers, engineers, contract manufacturers, marketers, supply chain service providers, support personnel, financial personnel, and even customers.
The balance of this white paper discusses:
- What PLM Can Provide
- Why Now (from both technological and market demand perspectives)
- Getting PLM Right
- What To Expect: Key Characteristics Of A PLM Environment