Maturity assessment for implementing and using product lifecycle management in project-oriented engineering companies

摘要

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a systematic and holistic way to approach challenges that exist in managing product-related information along a product's lifecycle from product design to its disposal. There is an established set of information management approaches that address important subsets of lifecycle information management challenges, e.g., product data management (PDM), customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP). A common characteristic of PLM is that implementation is a very challenging and complex long-term process, requiring changes in organisation, systems, conventions and importantly, skills and capabilities. The aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of PLM maturity assessment and its use and application in the specific industrial context of project-oriented engineering companies. Within this context, the empirical part of the paper studies the usefulness and tailoring needs of generic capability maturity assessment in implementing and facilitating PLM.