Product lifecycle management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from inception, through engineering design and manufacture, to service and disposal of manufactured products. PLM integrates people, data, processes and business systems and provides a product information backbone for companies and their extended enterprise community (marketing, product management, sales, engineering, advertising, regulatory, finance, customer services, support.
| Features Include |
|---|
| MANAGE a product’s full lifecycle – Seamlessly handle the changing scope and scale of the logistics, workflow, resources and financial objectives through the entire product launch process |
| RE-USE of existing assets – harness existing processes, procedures and resources |
| MAXIMIZE supply chain collaboration – enable pro-active processes that allow all actors, sponsors and consumers to interact through-out the product lifecycle |
| ACCELERATE qualification for sales and revenue contributions – ascertain potential and forecast in-situ throughout the product lifecycle with prototyping, pilot and trial process management |
| ENSURE quality and reliability at every stage – proactive process management through the lifecycle |
| STANDARDIZE framework for product optimization – tried and tested repeatability and process standardization to improve quality and cost management |
| INTEGRATE with existing assets (processes management and catalog applications) to elevate and accelerate business priorities and digital transformation |
The Product Lifecycle (PLM) Journey
Products, like people, have lifecycles. The product lifecycle is broken into four stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. This concept is used by management and by marketing professionals as a factor in deciding when it is appropriate to increase advertising, reduce prices, expand to new markets, or redesign packaging.
Kloudville PLM 360 supports the full scope of the Product Lifecycle from complex, large-scale product design and launches to small, contained quick repackaging or design implementation. With a project-based approach, Kloudville PLM 360 supports and provides solutions for all stages of the product lifecycle management process; harmonizing and bringing together each stage under one, simplified digital process.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)
Ideation
Every product begins with an idea; evolved out of a previous generation models, iterations or as completely unique. The product realization processes may differ, but the fundamental steps to innovate, qualify and quantify remain the same. Many organizations rely on paper based or basic project management tools and lack capsulation under a complete “digital process” – Imagine Specify, Plan & Innovate. Kloudville PLM360 provides organizational support to integrate product proposals, approvals, individual task assignment and progress tracking at every stage.
Concept
At the conceptual stage, the product idea must transform into viable and marketable asset with a detailed quantification and value assessment process. Kloudville PLM 360 allows for instant dispersal of conceptual material, collaboration over market research, and tracking stage process breaking down internal silos, and streamlining all processes.
Design
Once the concept has been realized, the “product” outline needs to be crafted from a hypothetical concept into prototype design (physical or otherwise). Kloudville PLM 360 provides process templates for role based actors assigned to steps aligned to “Describe, Define, Develop, Test, Analyze and Validate” components of product realization. Kloudville PLM 360 customizable approval process and task-based assignments encourage collaboration between team members and control of product quality.
Build
During the build process, keep up to date as the product design progresses through realization or assembly (either as a physical prototype or service offering). The Build process may include parallel activities and assignments (make, build, procure, produce etc).
Assign tasks with forecast and actual resource commitment and deadlines, track progress, and effectively communicate between team members to accelerate development and delivery of the product.
Testing
Prior to official launch, the designed prototype functionality needs to be tested meticulously. Kloudville PLM 360 provides customizable project workflow with rigorous approval processes and real-time internal notifications, ensuring the highest of quality for the product.
Launch
Kloudville PLM 360 can manually or automatically launch product(s) to the catalog (enterprise or federated), with product definitions, rich content, pricing and eligibility rules. With a project-based approach, create customizable workflows with task assignments, deadlines, approval process for use, operate, maintain, support, sustain, phase-out, retire, recycle and disposal all of which are custom configurable.
Evaluation
Evaluation of product from marketing feedback is essential and can lead to major modifications to product offering in real-time. Kloudville PLM 360 makes the task of managing any necessary changes and upgrades through impact analysis and associated gates for approval to ensure product quality and detailed tracking and history of changes being digitally recorded.
How can Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) help you?
Organize and Optimize
Product Lifecycles are shortening – with vendors reducing launch cycles from yearly to quarterly or monthly and most optimally to days or even hours. Keep organized and flexible with PLM optimization.
Support and Maintain
Complex products increasingly require continuous updates not only from business performance perspective but also technical such as security, bug fixes and/or maintenance. Quickly modify and track product changes with PLM.
Accelerate and Innovate
Products are becoming customizable through integration, with added features for functionality and delivery. PLM will help products compete with market acceleration.