Product Life Cycle Managment

10 Ocak 2016 Pazar

What Is a Product?

In general, a product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process. " The word "product" stems from the verb "produce", from the Latin prōdūce(re) "(to) lead or bring forth. " Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced.

In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. In retail, products are called merchandise. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials and sold as finished goods. Commodities are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products, but the term can also refer to anything widely available in the open market. In project management, products are the formal definition of the project deliverables that form the objectives of the project.

Goods, Services, or Ideas

Goods are a physical product capable of being delivered to a purchaser and involve the transfer of ownership from seller to customer.

A service is a non-material action resulting in a measurable change of state for the purchaser caused by the provider.

Ideas (intellectual property) are any creation of the intellect that has commercial value, but is sold or traded only as an idea, and not as a resulting service or good. This includes copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideational property, such as patents, appellations of origin, business methods, and industrial processes.

Product Classification: Tangible or Intangible

A product can be classified as tangible or intangible.

A tangible product is a physical object that can be perceived by touch such as a building, vehicle, or gadget. Most goods are tangible products. For example, a soccer ball is a tangible product .

Cup

A cup is an example of a tangible product

An intangible product is a product that can only be perceived indirectly such as an insurance policy. Intangible data products can further be classified into virtual digital goods ("VDG"), which are virtually located on a computer OS and accessible to users as conventional file types, such as JPG and MP3 files. Virtual digital goods require further application processing or transformational work by programmers, so their use may be subject to license and or rights of digital transfer. On the other hand, real digital goods ("RDG") may exist within the presentational elements of a data program independent of a conventional file type. Real digital goods are commonly viewed as 3-D objects or presentational items subject to user control or virtual transfer within the same visual media program platform. Services or ideas are intangible.

Product Classification: By Use or By Association

In its online product catalog, retailer Sears, Roebuck and Company divides its products into "departments", then presents products to potential shoppers according to function or brand. Each product has a Sears item-number and a manufacturer's model-number. Sears uses the departments and product groupings with the intention of helping customers browse products by function or brand within a traditional department-store structure.

A productline is "a group of products that are closely related, either because they function in a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through the same types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges. " Many businesses offer a range of product lines which may be unique to a single organization or may be common across the company's industry. In 2002 the US Census compiled revenue figures for the finance and insurance industry by various product lines such as "accident, health and medical insurance premiums" and "income from secured consumer loans. " Within the insurance industry, product lines are indicated by the type of risk coverage, such as auto insurance, commercial insurance, and life insurance.

History of Product Lifecycle Management

A Brief History of Product Lifecycle Management

To understand how and why product lifecycle management first developed and why there is a clear and growing need for PLM, we first need to look at what we mean by product lifecycle.

The Concept of Product Lifecycle

In 1931 Otto Kleppner developed a precursor to what we now understand as the basic product lifecycle where he suggested that products go through three stages:

Pioneering
Competitive
Retentive

The next reference was from a man called Jones who worked for Booz, Allen and Hamilton, and in 1957 he theorized that there was a lifecycle that is characteristic of most products and he put forward this terminology:

Introduction
Growth
Maturity
Saturation
Decline

In 1959 Patton wrote that there was consensus that the key element of the product lifecycle was that profits are high during the growth phase and decline due to competition during the maturity phase.

How did these definitions of product lifecycle evolve to our current understanding?

As early as 1985 there was clear understanding that:

The price of new products should be as high as possible.
In the transition from maturity to saturation, competition between different manufacturers would reduce prices.
Towards the end of a product's life, the market and not the manufacturer would set its price.

The currently accepted terms for product lifecycle today are:

Introduction
Growth
Maturity
Decline

So where does Product Life Cycle Management fit into this

PLM developed as a manufacturing tool for businesses seeking to maximise the advantage of bringing new products to the market first.

During the introduction stage of a product's lifecycle (PLC) there is very little competition, but developmental costs are high. Once the growth stage is reached, product volumes increase exponentially and it is at this stage that adroit manufacturers reap the major portion of their profits.

PLM aims to facilitate the process by allowing manufacturers to:

Shorten the time from concept to sales.
Reduce development costs.
Ramp up production volumes to meet demand.
Manage and improve on product quality and cost.
Reduce manufacturing costs as product moves from growth to maturity and into decline.

One of the first recorded applications of PLM was in 1985 by American Motors Corporation who were looking for a way to speed up the product development process of the Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Jeep Grand Cherokee

The first step was the using CAD tools with the primary objective of increasing the productivity level of the draughtsmen. Accuracy and consistency was enhanced because drawings and documents were stored in a central repository in their database. This in turn facilitated the engineering change process with easy access to correct documentation, allowing quick and effective resolution of design errors.

This novel approach was so effective that when Chrysler purchased American Motors in 1987 they retained it, and this helped to make them the lowest cost American manufacturer in the next decade.

Today – the modern world of PLM

PLM is now the term is now used to represent the integrated set of software tools used in the design, review, and manufacture of products and product lines from initial conception, development, manufacture, distribution, to end of life.

As with the American Motors initiative, an effective PLM system is fully integrated using the same data and information for all transactions, and thus ensuring data integrity and the minimisation of errors.

Product Lifecycle Management

Product Lifecycle Management

“Product lifecycle management is an integrated, information-driven approach to all aspects of a product’s life --from its design inception through its manufacture, deployment and maintenance, culminating in its removal from service and final disposal.”

University of Michigan PLM Development Consortium

Product Lifecycle Management

• Provide collaborative data environments that manages the intellectual property associated with the evolving engineering, construction, and maintenance definition

• Provide an accurate technical knowledge foundation and detailed history of the configuration throughout the entire lifecycle, from concept to disposal, while continuously coordinating complex interdependent changes initiated by various technical and business stakeholders

• Strong relationships between PLM (Product Lifecycle Management), MES (Manufacturing Execution System), and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) offers the ability to build a comprehensive closed loop information system

• PLM is unique from other enterprise software solutions, byproviding the application depth and breadth needed to digitally author, validate and manage the detailed product and process data, PLM supports continuous innovation

Challenges in Manufacturing and Lifecycle Maintenance

Pressure on Cost and Delivery Time:

Design cost and design rework
Manufacturing cost and manufacturing rework
Procurement cost and information exchange
Penalties for delays
Penalties for not met requirements
Operating costs

2. Drivers for OEM’s customers:

Total lifecycle costs
Availability of the asset
Costs / time / flexibility for conversions
Pressure to improve operating efficiency
Regulatory constraints
Rapidly changing enabling technology
Increased market volatility
Tightening of growth opportunities
Diminishing size of skilled resourcesx

Communication and Collaboration

1. Removing the Silos of Communication

– Information silos separate an organization along departmental boundaries, creating challenges when integrating work

• Managing continuous changes

• Working in parellel vs. sequential

– Silos inhibit integrated decision making, affecting budget and on-time delivery of the vessel

2. Defining the “as-is” business state

– Diagram current business processes

– Analyze to determine those that are value added and nonvalue added

– Use of technology to automate non-value added processes and ensure better communication throughout the organization

– Leveraging industry expertise to support analysing and mapping business processes

3. Managing Intellectual Property

– Creating a single source of truth

• PLM collaboration technology streamlines the ability to securely share technical data amongst groups of people

• Provide transparency to who is doing what, when, where, and how, to the configuration and technical documentation throughout the entire lifecycle

4. Integrating Enterprise Solutions

– Understanding the value and function of key technologies and how they interface

Standardized Processes and the Capture of Best Practices

• Capturing Tribal Knowledge (the experience and expertise that have been passed down from one generation of workers to the next)

• Create a Library of Re-usable Processes
– Continuous analysis of best practices and process improvements
– Configuration controlled to support traceability and visibility to what was done where, when, by whom and with what resources

• Process Validation – Simulate the assembly sequence to ensure fit, form and function – Perform ergonomic studies to ensure worker safety and feasibility

• Manufacturing Validation – Validate NC programming code prior to machining a part – Store code in association with the relavent machines for future re-use

Production Optimization

• Having a top down view allows industrial engineers and production planners the ability to capture what is happening at any given time and explore options for future projects or improvement to existing production

• Key Elements to Managing Production

– Layout of facility

– Material flow

– Scheduling of production

– Inventory control

• Drivers for the use of software technology to optimize the facility layout can range from:

– Determining scenarios for yard expansion
– Modernizing existing facilities
– Re-architecting where various equipment and inventory are stored
– Incorporation of additional programs into an existing production schedule
– Resource demand and utilization
– Equipment demand and utilization