Product portfolio management as part of product lifecycle management for configure-to-order products

Abstract. Product portfolio management (PPM) research has mainly focused on PPM practices by covering the early stage of the lifecycle and not the whole lifecycle of the product. In addition, lifecycle management has been applied to individual products rather than the entire product portfolio. In this thesis, PPM research focuses on both all lifecycle phases and the entire product portfolio rather than only individual products. The research aims to study how configurable products should be arranged in the case company’s future Product lifecycle management (PLM) system. The case company of the thesis is Valmet Flow Control Oy, which delivers flow control technologies and services for different industries. The current Product data management (PDM) system in use is no longer supported and it is seen that the PDM system does not support the company’s needs anymore. Therefore, a new PLM system is needed to cover future demands in the case company. The product portfolio is composed of a product series, which refers to a certain product type and model. This thesis focuses on configure-to-order (CTO) products, which are configured based on customers’ needs with pre-defined specifications. This thesis proposes, how to present product series level object in the PLM system and what kind of product data it contains. The main result of the research is the created product series object in the future PLM system and how to manage product series through their lifecycle in one centralized system with all internal stakeholders. The availability, traceability, and data use are also essential results. Appropriate exploitation of data allows to reveal the most critical information, enabling the management of the whole product portfolio from one PLM system. This kind of procedure creates transparency in the product portfolio.Tuoteportfolion hallinta osana tuotteen elinkaaren hallintaa tilauksesta määritettäville tuotteille. Tiivistelmä. Tuoteportfolion hallinnan (PPM) tutkimukset ovat pääasiassa keskittyneet PPM:n käytäntöihin elinkaaren alkuvaiheessa eikä tuotteen koko elinkaaren hallintaan (PLM). Lisäksi PLM:ää on sovellettu yksittäisten tuotteiden tasolla eikä niinkään koko tuoteportfolion tasolla. Tässä diplomityössä PPM:n tutkimus keskittyy sekä koko tuotteen elinkaaren vaiheisiin että koko tuoteportfolioon yksittäisten tuotteiden sijasta. Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena on tutkia kuinka konfiguroitavat tuotteet pitäisi järjestellä tulevaan PLM-järjestelmään tapausyrityksessä. Diplomityön tapausyrityksenä on Valmet Flow Control Oy, joka toimittaa virtauksensäätöratkaisuja ja -palveluja eri teollisuudenaloille. Nykyistä käytössä olevaa tuotetiedonhallinta järjestelmää (PDM) ei enää ylläpidetä eikä PDM-järjestelmä tue yrityksen tarpeita enää. Tästä johtuen PLM-järjestelmää tarvitaan, jotta voidaan kattaa tulevaisuuden tarpeet tapausyrityksessä. Tuoteportfolio koostuu tuotesarjoista, joilla viitataan tiettyyn tuotetyyppiin ja malliin. Tämä diplomityö keskittyy tilauksesta määritettäviin tuotteisiin eli konfiguroitaviin tuotteisiin, jossa tuote konfiguroidaan asiakkaan tarpeiden mukaisesti ennalta määrättyjen spesifikaatioiden avulla. Tässä työssä esitetään kuinka tuotesarjatason objekti kuvataan PLM-järjestelmässä ja mitä tuotetietoja sille tarvitaan. Tutkimuken päätuloksena luodaan tuotesarjaobjekti tulevaisuuden PLM-järjestelmään ja tehdään kehitysehdotus siitä, kuinka tuotesarjoja tulisi hallita niiden koko elinkaaren ajan yhdessä järjestelmässä, ja kaikkien sisäisten sidosryhmien kanssa. Tiedon saatavuus, jäljitettävyys sekä hyödyntäminen ovat myös pääasiallisia työn tuloksia. Tiedon oikeanlainen hyödyntäminen mahdollistaa kriittisimmän tiedon esittämisen ja siten mahdollistaa koko tuoteportfolion hallinnan yhdestä PLM-järjestelmästä

An approach to control collaborative processes in PLM systems

Companies that collaborate within the product development processes need to implement an effective management of their collaborative activities. Despite the implementation of a PLM system, the collaborative activities are not efficient as it might be expected. This paper presents an analysis of the problems related to the collaborative work using a PLM system. From this analysis, we propose an approach for improving collaborative processes within a PLM system, based on monitoring indicators. This approach leads to identify and therefore to mitigate the brakes of the collaborative work

Development of an Extended Product Lifecycle Management through Service Oriented Architecture.

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityThe aim of this work is to define new business opportunities through the concept of Extended Product Lifecycle Management (ExtPLM), analysing its potential implementation within a Service Oriented Architecture. ExtPLM merges the concepts of Extended Product, Avatar and PLM. It aims at allowing a closer interaction between enterprises and their customers, who are integrated in all phases of the life cycle, creating new technical functionalities and services, improving both the practical (e.g. improving usage, improving safety, allowing predictive maintenance) and the emotional side (e.g. extreme customization) of the product.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Company; BAE Systems; S4T – Support Service Solutions: Strategy and Transitio

Requirements analysis for decision-support system design: evidence from the automotive industry

The purpose of this paper is to outline the requirements analysis that was carried out to support the development of a system that allows engineers to view real-time data integrated from multiple silos such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Warranty systems, in a single and visual environment. The outcome of this study provides a clear understanding of how engineers working in different phases of the product-lifecycle could utilise such information to improve the decision making process and as a result design better products. This study uses data collected via in-depth semi-structured interviews and workshops that includes people working in various roles within the automotive sector. In order to demonstrate the applicability this approach, SysML diagrams are also provided

Enterprise modelling : building a product lifecycle (PLM) model as a component of the integrated vision of the enterprise

Enterprise modelling has proved to be an efficient tool to study organisations structure and facilitate decision making. The enterprise is a complex system that is required to use its processes to generate value in a given environment (concurrent, market, suppliers and humanity). We focus on three management disciplines: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). These business processes are so intertwined that the enterprise has to concentrate on the three to attain its economic objectives. To enhance the development of PLM, SCM and CRM models, the enterprise needs to capitalise the knowledge necessary to adapt and apply modelling techniques. Knowledge Management (KM) is a key factor to give a unified enterprise vision. Firstly, we propose an integrated enterprise model depicting the interactions between PLM, SCM, CRM and KM models. But a state of the art showed that PLM models are scarce. Most of the PLM models found depends strongly on the particular case studied and can not be used with other enterprises. After defining the most important components of the PLM vision, we propose to organise these components into a formalised way. The study of SCM and CRM models proved to be helpful to structure these components. Finally the validation methodology that is to be established in our coming research works is not only to be used with the PLM model presented in this paper but with SCM and CRM models also.Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise modelling, Enterprise systems

Problem solving methods as Lessons Learned System instrumentation into a PLM tool

Among the continuous improvement tools of the performance in enterprise, the experience feedback represents undoubtedly an effective lever of progress by offering important prospects for a progression in almost all the industrial sectors. However, several reserves to its use slow down the diffusion of its employment. We are interested in the installation of experience feedback system in a partner enterprise. In this paper, we propose an instrumentation of a Lessons Learned System (LLS) by problem solving methods (PSM) and its integration with a product lifecycle management (PLM). These proposals support an improvement of LLS performance and a facility of his application

Proposition of a PLM tool to support textile design: A case study applied to the definition of the early stages of design requirements

The current climate of economic competition forces businesses to adapt more than ever to the expectations of their customers. Faced with new challenges, practices in textile design have evolved in order to be able to manage projects in new work environments. After presenting a state of the art overview of collaborative tools used in product design and making functional comparison between PLM solutions, our paper proposes a case study for the development and testing of a collaborative platform in the textile industry, focusing on the definition of early stages of design needs. The scientific contributions presented in this paper are a state of the art of current PLM solutions and their application in the field of textile design; and a case study where we will present, define, and test the mock-up of a collaborative tool to assist the early stages, based on identified intermediary representations

Integrated product relationships management : a model to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning

The paper describes a novel approach to product relationships management in the context of concurrent engineering and product lifecycle management (PLM). Current industrial practices in product data management and manufacturing process management systems require better efficiency, flexibility, and sensitivity in managing product information at various levels of abstraction throughout its lifecycle. The aim of the proposed work is to manage vital yet complex and inherent product relationship information to enable concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Indeed, the definition of the product with its assembly sequence requires the management and the understanding of the numerous product relationships, ensuring consistency between the product and its components. This main objective stresses the relational design paradigm by focusing on product relationships along its lifecycle. This paper gives the detailed description of the background and models which highlight the need for a more efficient PLM approach. The proposed theoretical approach is then described in detail. A separate paper will focus on the implementation of the proposed approach in a PLM-based application, and an in-depth case study to evaluate the implementation of the novel approach will also be given