What is meant by “Lifecycle” in the term PLM?
By Mike Clare

PLM has become an indiscriminately used buzzword throughout the industry. PLM is meant to address the support of a product after a customer takes delivery.  This has been a long neglected area where there is an enormous opportunity to build good will, develop long term business relationships, and take advantage of post delivery products and services.  Up to now, the Dassault tool suite has advertised but not delivered as a true PLM product.
         
We have submitted a request to the COE community to create a Support and Services Process Interest Committee (PIC) to address these very issues.  The COE Board was gracious enough to allow me to present a session on this topic at the spring ’06 national conference in Atlanta.  It was obvious from the user community attendance there was an interest initiate an S&S session.  I am writing this article to bring awareness to those this field of interest that have stopped attending, or limited your attendance to COE, in the event you are not aware of this new session.  There is now an opportunity to implement a true PLM for your customers.  When you mention “PLM” and don’t address post delivery support of products you are not really addressing the true “Lifecycle” of your product.  Without Support and Services you have PM (Product Management) not PLM (Product LIFECYCLE Management).  There is now a potential to leverage the Dassault tool suite for a fully integrated PLM solution.  This means new opportunities within your current customer base as well as expanding your market opportunities.

Dassault has committed to support this part of industry in the last year by creating a support and services domain and are supportive of the creation of this PIC.  Now all we need is participants.  If you are interested in being a presenter, please send me a message at my below email address.  We would be interested in hearing how your company utilizes the tool suite so we can better understand how the S&S PLM needs to evolve to support your customer’s requirements.
 
The areas that I am aware of for Support and Services have to do with Technical documentation (maintenance, part identification, trouble shooting, repair…), the other aspects are maintaining configuration of products, the virtual world of training, and the validation of technical data.  I am sure there are many other areas that could evolve in this area of interest, so please send your ideas forward for discussion.  There is a COE Forum called Services and Support on the COE website.  Please feel free to use this to raise topics and discussion items.  Find out what your peers in this discipline are doing with the Dassault tools to make there businesses more competitive and efficient.

Mike Clare
michael.t.clare@boeing.com