PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

In this "ERA OF PRODUCTION". THE PLM is very important because from raw material to finished what are process come into it.

Basically the life cycle refers to the first period Of the product’s launch into the market until its final withdrawal and it is split up into phases. During this period significant changes are made in the way that the product is behaving into the market i.e. its reflection in respect of sales to the company that introduced it into the market. Since an increase in profits is the major goal of a company that introduces a product into a market, the product’s life cycle management is very important...

ADVANTAGES OF PLM:-

* it Reduces time to market
* it Improved product quality
* it Reduces prototyping costing
* Ability to quickly identify potential sales opportunities and revenue contributions
* Savings through the re-use of original data
* A framework for product data & optimization
* Reduced wastage
* Savings through the complete integration of engineering workflows



THE HISTORY BEHIND PLM:-

The PLM came when American Motors Corporation (AMC) was looking for a way to speed up its product development process to compete better against its larger competitors in 1985, according to François Castaing, Vice President for Product Engineering and Development. The first part in its quest for faster product development was computer-aided design (CAD) software system that make engineers more productive.
Then after that to minimise cost of operation & design advanced software were introduced like catia,solid edge,ansis,sap & etc

Introduction to development process:

The core part of PLM is in the creation and central management of all product data and the technology used to access this information and knowledge. PLM as a discipline area in which it is emerged from tools such as CAD, CAM and PDM, but can be viewed as the integration of these tools with methods, people and the processes through all stages of a product’s life.It is not just about software technology but is also a business strategy..

The major key point events are:
1.Order
2.Idea
3.Kick-off
4.Design freeze
5.Launch

The reality is however more complex, people and departments cannot perform their tasks in isolation and one activity cannot simply finish and the next activity start. Design is an iterative process, often designs need to be modified due to manufacturing constraints or conflicting requirements. Where exactly a customer order fits into the time line depends on the industry type, whether the products are for example Build to Order, Engineer to Order, or Assemble to Order.

THE EVOLUTION OF PLM:

With the invent of Computer Aided Design (CAD) systems in the early 1980s, engineering design entered a new era.CAD systems enabled the creation of a geometric model of the product in the computer, it will be reused and manipulated by the designer as needed. Each new CAD system provided more/better features and functions than earlier ones. CAD systems were, and remain, highly technical softwares with extremely rich features and functions for detailed design
work. In parallel with the development of Computer–Aided Design, Manufacturing and Engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) tools, Product Data Management (PDM) systems appeared during 1980s to control and manage the product information created by various information authoring tools. The need for easy, quick and secure access to valid data during the product design process was the major driver for the development of PDM. The core functionality of early
PDM systems, therefore, was to provide users with required data through their central data repository and to insure integrity of the product data by continual updating as well as controlling the way people create and modify the data.Over time, PDM solutions were supplemented with new functionalities like change management, document management, workflow management and project management that promised concurrent engineering and streamlined product development processes within the enterprise. The first generation of PDM systems, although effective within the engineering domain, failed to encompass non-engineering areas within the enterprise such as sales, marketing and supply chain management as well as the external agents like customers and suppliers. Two major constraints hindered
further expansion of PDM systems. First, they had a limited scope, in terms of data. The information managed by early PDM systems was limited to the engineering information like geometric models, BOM and FEA models. It was because these systems were designed at the outset to support and supplement CAD/CAM/CAE systems. Second, working with
PDM systems was not always easy and usually required an engineering/technical background.
In the 1990s, PDM vendors began offering systems with web-enabled front-end together with more powerful and userfriendly visualization tools to broaden the user base. The Web provided the necessary infrastructure for developing lightweight, generic user interfaces with extremely low support cost. Due to the universal, inexpensive and ubiquitous nature of the Internet, web-based PDM systems became more accessible throughout the extended enterprise.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT THROUGH PLM:

As we move from the industrial age into the information age, knowledge is critical to competitiveness. In order to leverage knowledge properly, it is necessary to understand its nature accurately. Data, information and knowledge are three concepts which are sometimes used interchangeably. Although it is not always easy to draw sharp borders between them, these concepts have some delicate distinctions. Data represents unorganized and unprocessed facts. Information can be considered as an aggregation of processed data which makes decision making easier. Knowledge is evaluated and organized information that can be used purposefully in a problem solving process. Data and information are much easier to store, describe and manipulate than is knowledge.
in organization, only 4% of organizational knowledge is available in a structured and reusable format and the rest is either unstructured or resides in peoples minds. The structured knowledge, although small in volume, has high value for companies because it can be accessed easily, mined and used for decision making. Generating structured knowledge, through transformation from tacit form into explicit form, is one of the critical steps of knowledge management. For the purpose of this paper, we use Newman’s definition of knowledge management as the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge. Also, we define lifecycle knowledge as the knowledge generated or consumed by various processes throughout the product’s life cycle. Associated with each

lifecycle process is one or more human or non-human agents which interact with the PLM knowledge base (KB) in the course of delivering their service. PLM KB in not necessarily a physically centralized repository of knowledge. Instead, it is an interconnected network of dispersed knowledge repertories which are virtually unified using IT solutions.