PLM

In the connected world, digital twins open up completely new possibilities: they virtually replicate physical systems, processes, or products. However, key challenges remain, including the collection of current product data. This issue of Industry 4.0 Science covers a wide range of topics, from the basic concept of the digital twin to its benefits in procurement and its use in supply chain management.

Many companies today consider managing and optimizing their product lifecycle information as a key competitive factor. This requires the integration of different domains along the Product Lifecycle in an integrated information model. Today, many Domain integrating IT-Projects, which aim to introduce PLM-Solutions, are managed as there would be classical domain specific IT Products introduced. For the conceptual solution design customers use to consult typical business strategy consultants. For implementation they consult IT-System Supplier Services. The complex domain integrating part is often rationalized away by phrases like loose coupling or service-oriented architecture. In such kind of approach a gap exists which has serious consequences in actual IT-projects. Integration independent of concepts like SOA means that system elements from one Data-Models have to be integrated and persistently linked in Data-Models of other domains. These facts increase the requirements for ...

Firms use product classifications as a mean for structuring diversified ranges of products and harmonizing their description. In many industries, products are subject of differentiation and increasing customer requirements which both require a stronger customization of products. This trend affects also product classifications which undergo changes quicker and more often as well as get more detailed. Therefore, classifying and describing products can no longer be regarded as a one-time task; it has to be done multiple times or even on a regular basis. In this paper, we take a cost perspective and propose a method for estimating product classification costs in firms.

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.

Shorter times to market determine the competitiveness of companies in all industries. The necessary approaches to improvement of industrial processes have to focus on the optimisation of the entire product lifecycle. The resulting management and organisational approach is called PLM. The preliminary integration of all data along the lifecycle can only be handled by semantic technologies. In addition, the introduced approach brings sufficient intelligence to capture enterprise knowledge and effective task support for employees.