An approach to characterize and evaluate the quality of Product Lifecycle Management Software Systems

PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is an information management system that can integrate data, processes, business systems and staff in a company, in general. PLM allows managing efficiently and economically the information that all these elements generate from the initial idea to design, manufacture, maintenance and elimination phases of the product lifecycle. PLM has to include processes and tools to assure the quality of the final products. This way, it is difficult for PLM experts (from aeronautical or automation organizations, among others) to find an environment that suggests which is the best PLM solution that copes with their necessities. A number of PLM solutions are available for this purpose, but experts require a suitable mechanism to select the most appropriate one for the specific context of each organization. For this purpose, this paper presents a quality model, based on QuEF (Quality Evaluation Framework), that aims at helping organizations choose the most useful PLM solution for their particular environments. This model supports both static and dynamic aspects that may be customized for any kind of organization and taken as reference model. Particularly, our approach has been validated in the context of large enterprises in the aeronautical industry within a real R&D project carried out between our research group and Airbus.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-

Model-Driven Skills Assessment in Knowledge Management Systems

Organizations need employees who perform satisfactorily in generic skills, such as teamwork, leadership, problem solving or interpersonal abilities, among others. In organizational environments, employees perform work that is not always visible for supervisors and, thus, they can hardly assess their performance in generic skills. By using a knowledge management system, the users are able to leave a trace of their activity in the system’s records. This research aims to address a computer supported assessment of the user’s generic skills from the perspective of Model-Driven engineering. First, a systematic mapping study is carried out to understand the state of the art. Second, a proposal based on Model-Driven engineering is presented and is then validated through an organizational learning process model. Our results are promising and we are able to conduct a scalable assessment based on objective indicators of the employee’s planning, time management and problem solving skills

Group decision support for product lifecycle management

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems support industrial organizations in managing their product portfolios and related data across all phases of the product lifecycle. PLM seeks to enhance an organization's ability to manage its product development activities and facilitate collaboration across organizational functions and between organizations. Effective decision-making is vital for the successful management of products over their lifecycle. However, PLM decision-making is an under-researched area. We argue that decision-making theory and group decision support concepts can be brought to bear to enhance PLM decision-making processes. We present and justify a set of six principles to support decision-making in a PLM context. The paper highlights the need to consider and capture decisions as distinct units of PLM knowledge to support product lifecycle management. We derive a generic information flow and a group decision support structure for PLM decision-making that encapsulates the six principles. Three industrial cases are analyzed to illustrate the application and value of the principles in supporting decision-making. The principles enable PLM decisions to be codified, recorded, and reviewed. Decision-making processes can be reused where appropriate. The principles can support future innovations that may affect PLM, such as ontological and semantic reasoning and Artificial Intelligence