International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING 6979(Print),

ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (IJIERD)

ISSN 0976 6979 (Print) ISSN 0976 6987 (Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), pp. 10-17 IAEME: www.iaeme.com/ijierd.html
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IJIERD
IAEME

AN OVERVIEW ON ACHIEVING PRODUCT SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN END-TO-END PLM SYSTEM

Radhika P Arethoti radhika1054@gmail.com PLM Consultant Capgemini Consulting Pvt. Ltd., India
1. ABSTRACT

Although PLM technologies have been capable of addressing the components of product lifecycle, from initial product concept to disposal, applications foundations have not necessarily always supported full PLM capabilities, resulting in limited utilization of the technology. Used to its full potential, PLM allows users to create and manage the intellectual capital generated in the development of their companies products and services, from ideation through to end of life, and importantly, not just during the design stages. It enhances companies development processes and their ability to use product information to make the best decisions around which product to make, and how to make it. Product Service Management (PSM) is a discipline that combines customer needs and product development to accelerate product improvements and facilitate product innovation. PLM market has a variety of tools to get Product Service Management aligned to a lifecycle system of a product based on its design and development requirements.
2. NEED OF PRODUCT SERVICE MANAGEMENT IN A PLM SYSTEM

The functions of Product Service Management consist of Asset Management (tracking of life items movement, maintaining life history of the life / spare parts, cannibalization), planning and execution of maintenance operations, user evaluation, defect/snag reporting and rectification, preparation of technical publication (user manual, service manual and standard technical instructions).Incorporation of these functionalities into PLM framework seamlessly integrates the designers, manufacturers / suppliers, and the customers. It also enables to carry out the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) functionalities and maintains the technical history and user feedback into PLM. The Product Service Management generates the as Built SOP (Standard of Preparation) and gives tail number based Product Structure. The Product Service Management (PSM) also contains the log cards of all serialized parts with history, and the same

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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

is a pre-requisite to operate and maintain products. The tail number based As Maintained SOP is achieved by bringing Product Service Management / MRO into PLM. This also evolves the PLM into an end to end lifecycle solution for the given product. Figure 1 shows the flow of product data in an End-to-End PLM system.

By considering the Product Services, PLM allows organizations to extend it into a set of dynamic and flexible services that go beyond the scope of the current limited infrastructure capabilities. This enables a suite of innovative processes which more closely align to customers needs to evolve to remain competitive. Simply put, Product Service Management provides organizations with a solid understanding of the efficiency and effectiveness of their futureproduct development processes. It offers the ability to rapidly create and restructure product driven applications and integrations, as well as the means to tightly integrate the organization and value chain, but with the flexibility to rapidly change and adapt as circumstances require. Product Service Management ties together the many discrete information associated with all aspects of product development while providing the ability to adapt to changing environments. The Product Service Management approach is based on optimizing existing capabilities and creating new functionality, enabled by the service oriented approach, to deliver dynamic, agile and flexible services and improved product functionality and quality. In developing Product Service Management content, organizations can extract the same data from each state of the product growth till its service cycleand the data form this stage is interchangeable, flexible, and can be used for further product development.
3. INDUSTRY TRENDS

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) technologies have driven product design and production innovation for more than a quarter century but the marketplace for increasingly complex productssuch as cars, trains, aircraft, ships, electrical and electronic goodshas never been more challenging. Companies need high levels of innovation and sophistication, competitively priced products, and efficient support processes. Manufacturing and product delivery organizations have, out of
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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

necessity for survival in a highly competitive marketplace, recognized these requirements and are embracing major changes in their working practices and the structure of the value chain in order to meet marketplace demands. Companies have implemented PLM solutions, but generally only to address limited and obvious needs, such as mechanical design. Therefore, the move to PLM has been driven primarily by engineering departments, resulting in an implementation that is often isolated from the rest of the business. To support the addition of new PLM applications to integratedesign partners systems, companies have hard coded theconnection points between systems and solutions, leading tofragile, difficult to maintain and nearly impossible to changesystems. To achieve the greatest efficiency in the designchain and meet marketplace demands, however, companiesmust be able to reuse parts and minimize changes late in thedesign process and after the product has been put in service.In addition, companies need to leverage product knowledgethroughout the product development process, particularly todetermine how well a product meets market requirementsbefore starting the design process. So the challenge becomes how to maintain complex andheterogeneous IT system environments and still be able toeasily change them to quickly react to market dynamics orcompetitive threats. Incremental improvements in technologycapabilities and performance have emerged, but have notnecessarily kept pace with companies needs. The bottom line: companies must be able to leverage the full scope of PLM.
4. TRADITIONAL PLM RESPONSE

In the vast majority of implementations, PLM technologies are used only in the management, control and distribution of design data, while up and downstream uses of the data and solutions are typically controlled by other applications (see figure 2). Although PLM technologies have been capable of addressing the components of product lifecycle, from first product concept to eventual disposal, application foundations have not supported PLMs full capabilities and have resulted in limited implementations of the technology. Data exchange between applications remains challenging, despite the emergence of third party tools that eliminate the traditional tasks of data translation. However, these efforts remain dependent on the same structured and rigid data model which underpins the PLM applications themselves. So if the process needs to change, new partners need to be added, new workflow rules created or new applications added to the IT architecture, changes are costly, clumsy, time consuming and introduce risk to the project.

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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

There are numerous challenges within a PLM environment, all of which must be addressed. These include: Adopting new business models to support increasing globalization Managing increasing product complexity e.g. integration between mechanical, software, electrical and electronic systems. Reducing massive investment in physical prototypes Ensuring the integrity of intellectual property when working with partners and suppliers. A partner for one project may be a competitor for another, so knowledge protection and security is vital. Responding to shifts in risk-sharing within a network of partners. For instance, through life maintenance and support responsibilities are shifting from the customer to the OEM. Outsourcing development and production tasks to low-cost sources to address the need for quicker time to market and lower ultimate product cost. Embracing the execution and compliance of new and emerging industry and legislative standards.

5. FULLY LEVERAGING PLM

What if you could maximize the scope of PLM by controlling the product development process from the portfolio planning stage through the retirement stage? What if you could add new partners and applications with ease? What if you could recognize and enhance the most impactful parts of your organization? Doing so requires having the supporting data to fully leverage the inherent scope of PLM. These capabilities allow you to maximize the investment in your PLM solutions through optimized and efficient processes, information flow through the entire product lifecycle. Used to its full potential, PLM allows users to create and manage the intellectual capital generated by their companies products, from ideation through end of lifenot just during the design stages. It enhances companies development processes and their ability to use product information to make the best overall choices around which product to make, and how to make it.

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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

6. BENEFITS OF THE FULL CAPABILITIES OF PLM

Process insight and optimizationThe first step in many engagements is to simply monitor what is happening. Having the ability to truly understand what is happening inside the business will then cement and facilitate the ability to enhance the most important and impactful parts of an organization. Accelerated product developmentIts not just about improvement and optimizationits about how fast you can identify the product that will drive change and how fast you can implement and deploy those changes to make the product development happen. Flexible design for future changeFinally, its critical to not only make the changes once, but to be prepared for the inevitable future changes that every organization will face.
7. SERVICE AFTER SALES

Performance information about products in the field is difficult to find if you are a manufacturer. Many users are reluctant to provide OEMs access to their operational data. At the same time, design information about products in the field is difficult to find if you are a customer or technician performing maintenance, repair or operations on those products. Until now, sharing information between OEMs and field operations has been limited, because technical product information is generally accessible only through the systems used to design them and customers and service providers do not normally have this access. Manufacturers have a similar problem. They do not have a view of how customers install maintain their products. The inability for manufacturers and customers to share information collaborate in service after sales type environments has led to inefficient field operations under-utilization of products for customers, as well as inadequate product performance
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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

redesign information for manufacturers. An important common issue is product performance. Often, the only view the manufacturer has of product performance is through warranty claims and parts orders. Because usage or design issues that show up in the field are often not fed back to manufacturers, future products inherit many of the faults that have already been experienced in the field. When manufacturers and consumers cannot collaborate, warranty problems, down time, poor maintenance work and an inability of the technician to fix it right first time can be the result. The impact on manufacturers is evident too, in lower sales and profits due to warranty claims and loss of competitive leadership. There is also the simple fact that the time it takes to discover the source of a problem is much longer if the OEM does not have access to operational data so a piece of equipment breaks 100 times over 10 years, rather than being noticed in year 1 and resolved early on.
8. NEED OF INTEGRATING PRODUCT SERVICE INFORMATION INTO PLM

SYSTEM Product Service Systems have received increased attention corporation and is recognized as a key aspect of successful business. Manufacturers, suppliers and customers are keen towards the functionality over the physical appearance. Being responsive to the product services and the product information generated can improve customer satisfaction and take advantage of opportunities for product life cycle management, including improved upstream information flow to product design and manufacturing. It helps in improving the quality of products, reducing the development and delivery time, and minimizing the impact on the environment, through the application of an information technology infrastructure supporting collaboration across multiple disciples to select optimal materials and processes for manufacture, service, and recycling. One of the challenges in realizing Product Service information is the need to balance the topdown approach to addressing service level challenges with the bottom-up approach of developing services. To address this challenge, a decomposition of the processes into the constituent components and a similar decomposition of the applications are required, with agreement reached by all partners of the product.
9. EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF PLM

PLM is the responsibility of the entire organization, not just engineering. However, due to infrastructure limitations, the processes underlying PLM are often fragmented, isolated and largely undefined. Business processes that impact, and is impacted by product expectations; performance and configuration must span the entire enterprise and extend beyond PLM design software. Figure 3 (below) illustrates focus areas for innovation processes to address: sales, research and development, project and program management, service after sales and integration. Automation
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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

of workflow and distribution of data is driven through the run time process engine to ensure seamless and automated exchange between applications and data consumers. In turn, the results from the execution of these processes and in addition, the ability to monitor their efficiency and effectiveness, is delivered through a presentation layer to the end user on the tool most appropriate for his/her role.

A further decomposition of these focus areas into target processes identifies current development areas in a Project & Program Innovation. Examples of these processes include: Cost & Weight Roll Up:Ability to gather accurate cost and weight information for a given configuration of a car, plane, boat, phone etc.e.g. what is the current weight of a LHD North American, convertible vehicle when the program is 60percent through target completion data. Information will come from multiple internal and external sources at various maturities (e.g. carry over re-use versus development part). Sales Innovation:Customer requirement to Change: Process where input from customer feedback is collated and analyzed, then driven through portfolio management, selection and into a change process.

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International Journal of Industrial Engineering Research and Development (IJIERD), ISSN 0976 6979(Print), ISSN 0976 6987(Online) Volume 3, Issue 2, July-December (2012), IAEME

R&D Innovation:Technology Adoption Alerting: Process for ensuring the R&D cycles are up to date with latest technology and approaches includes trade studies, customer input, field input, technology monitoring. Service After Sales Innovation:Fault Alert to engineering Change: Process covers the current PLM demonstration with fault alerts in the field triggering warranty, leading to engineering change and collaborative redesign before embodiment. Integration Innovation:Intellectual Property protection when collaborating with the value chain/customersi.e. based on supplier log on, access only to certain data to view, retrieve, share, create, update, delete, etc.
10. CONCLUSION

PLM is no longer only about engineeringPLM is aboutProduct Services as well. It has expanded to include all the upstream anddownstream processes that are critical to competitiveness intodays technology and customer needs.Product data at the stages of manufacturing, practice, maintenance to recycling and re-manufacturing is systematically captured and applicable partners are added to the PLM system in a secured forum and this information is fed back to the PLM system for further re-design and development of product thus utilizing the full scope of PLM for Product Innovation (PI) and New Product Development (NPD). As an informative point, some of the tools that are available in todays PLM market and are capable of getting integrated to PLM system for Product Service Management are as Business Process Management (BPM), Product Data Management (PDM), Enterprise Data Management (EDM), Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and SharePoint.
11. REFERENCES

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

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7) 8) 9)

http://plmtwine.com/plm-daily-think-tank/Oleg Shilovitsky http://www-01.ibm.com/software/plm/ http://plmtechnologyguide.com/site/ Van Handenhoven, E., & Trassaert, P. (1999). Design knowledge and design skills. Paper presented at International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 99), Munich. Vroom, R. W. Information generated and/or used during product and process development. Proceedings 2nd WDK Workshop on Product Structuring, pp 131-140, Delft, TheNetherlands, 1996. Pikosz P. and Malmqvist J. Possibilities and Limitations when Introducing PDM Systems to Support the Product Development Process, Proceedings NordDesign96, pp 165-175, Espoo, Finland, 1996. (http://www.mvd.chalmers.se/publications/pub_list.html) Peter Pikosz and Johan MalmqvistA Comparative Study of Engineering Change Management in 3 Swedish Engineering Companies. VishanthWeerakkody and Wendy Currie Integrating Business Process Reengineering with Information Systems Development: Issues & Implications Maria Giovanna TrottaProduct Lifecycle Management: Sustainability and knowledge management as keys in a complex system of product development. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Managementdoi:10.3926/jiem.2010.v3n2.p309-322

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