Autor: Michael Abramovici

PLM solutions are well established as a backbone for effective industrial engineering. As a company-wide solution, long term PLM planning has to be aligned with other company strategies, such as business, product or IT strategies. Since PLM solutions are mostly shaped by commercial PLM software providers with a focus on profitable short term software, the development of a long term corporate PLM strategy is quite challenging. In order to provide guidance in the process of long term strategic planning, ITM Bochum conducted a Delphi study in spring 2009 interviewing roughly 50 well-known industrial PLM experts. The study assessed and quantified the expected PLM developments, applications, and research trends in the next 10 years. Each of the interviewed experts has more than 20 years of experience in PLM and covers a different industrial perspective (management, product development, IT). Thus, their estimations are significant to identify main trends in PLM. This article summarizes the ...

Product piracy poses an increasing threat to manufacturers and providers of products in the industrial sector. Therefore the application of technical solutions for the protection against product counterfeiting and copying becomes more and more important. In this context, especially the use of RFID technology constitutes an effective instrument for tracking original products and components along the supply chain and also for quick and reliable verification and confirmation of their authenticity. Within the joint project MobilAuthent, supported by the BMBF, a solution for forgery-proof product authentication and tracking along the supply chain based on RFID is being developed. This article introduces the first project results as well as the MobilAuthent concept. The presented solution can be flexibly adapted to different company and product-related requirements.

Existing PLM solutions provide mature methods and functionalities for the management of processes and data of virtual products in the early product lifecycle phases. Appropriate solutions for managing information of individual real physical products within the production, use and end-of-life phases are not available. In this article an approach for a product-individual information management is presented, which is based on a product traceability solution.

The technical change management poses a particular challenge for the components supplier industry, due to this industry needs to consider a number of internal as well as OEMs’ external requirements concerning the underlying process. Thus a multitude of process sequences develop, which complicate standardisation and computer support. The following article describes a pragmatic method of resolution, which was conceptually designed and implemented within a project of the company KEIPER GmbH & Co. KG and the Chair of Information Technology in Mechanical Engineering (ITM) at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

The product engineering is gaining in importance as it is the main source for innovations in manufacturing enterprises. In most cases the necessary ma-nagement and IT approaches are almost underestimated in strategic top-ma-nagement decisions, despite the advancing digitalisation in digital engineering. Product lifecycle management (PLM) has established itself as an integrated ma-nagement approach in engineering, but is often misunderstood as a synonym for PDM and delegated to IT departments. The survey “benefits of PLM” points out the reached benefits and most successful PLM implementation strategies.