Defining Product Lifecycle Management: A Journey across Features, Definitions, and Concepts

TLDR

PLM is increasingly critical for managing product data and knowledge across the lifecycle, with recent debate focusing on managerial versus technological perspectives. The authors synthesize existing PLM literature through focus groups, blogs, and meetings, using managerial, technological, and collaborative features to review definitions and propose an extended PLM definition. The study provides a comprehensive reference that clarifies PLM definitions, features, and concepts for managers and academics.

Abstract

Product lifecycle management (PLM) has become more important in companies providing technologies and methodologies to manage data, information, and knowledge along the whole product lifecycle. In recent years, several authors have argued about PLM using a managerial or a technological view. The paper analyses these studies and integrates different author's points of view using focus groups, blogs, and face-to-face meetings in a university community of practice. Three sets of features (i.e., managerial, technological, and collaborative ones) have been used to review the existing definitions shared between academic and industrial ones and to propose an extended PLM definition describing its key concepts. The paper is a useful reference for managers and academics who want to have a clear and critical understanding of PLM using a unique source to collect lines of evidence on several PLM definitions, features, and concepts.