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Product Lifecycle Management
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Product Lifecycle Management – Strategic success factor
Today it takes comprehensive process and system integration management to manage the complexity involved in development, production and other outsourced processes.
- According to the US-based market research company, Aberdeen, CIOs will have to pay more attention to product lifecycle management (PLM) in the future. They will need to incorporate change management processes in addition to product and design data right from the start. The greatest reason behind the increasing interest in PLM is the trend toward increasingly short development cycles (mentioned by 56 percent of those surveyed) Not nearly as much importance was placed on cost pressure (34 percent). Thirty percent of those surveyed mentioned the fact that those participating in the development process are not located centrally in one location as being an additional reason. Aberdeen, The CIO’s role in PLM
- A survey showed that almost half of the manufacturing companies surveyed devote less than ten percent of their IT budget to PLM. That is not enough to provide important IT systems for enterprise resource planning (ERP), construction, production, sales and service with consolidated information. ECS Engineering Consulting & Solutions, 2009.
- In times of crisis, strategic PLM projects tend to be put on the back burner whereas smaller, short-term projects take a front-row seat if they will help companies realize a significant, faster return on investment. Pierre Audoin Consultants, 2009
One of the main challenges for industrial companies is mastering the complexity of products and processes. Product lifecycle management (PLM) has undergone enormous technological advancements and companies can choose from among proven approaches, tools and evaluation methods. But many users still do not consider IT-supported PLM processes to be a key strategic element. This has an impact on product launch processes. According to a study conducted by the US-based market research firm Aberdeen, 86 percent of best-in-class companies in the PLM area manage to take their products to market within their targeted time and cost framework. Companies with a less-than-average set-up do not even manage to realize 1 out of 5 projects.
Tracking the entire life cycle
T-Systems considers PLM to be an all-encompassing management task with the product being the strategic focal point. As a service provider, T-Systems logically connects existing data islands and combines manufacturer and supplier processes. The fact that nowadays products are developed simultaneously in global added-value networks calls for collaboration networks that allow joint development and production processes. This is the only solution that allows manufacturers to track the entire life cycle of their products from the initial idea to service / end-of-life.
