Challenges for developing intelligent, interactive and cooperative PLM systems: introductory article on applications of artificial intelligence and virtual reality to product lifecycle management

摘要

Current Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are document-oriented, have difficulties with customisation and present drawbacks to the enhancement of inter-enterprise collaboration. To elaborate on a modern concept of PLM, it is necessary to adopt intelligent, cooperative and interactive technologies. To do so, we present a paper that contains useful ideas to be challenged and debated: the notions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and soft-computing and a literature review regarding AI, soft-computing and Virtual Reality (VR) approaches to the PLM systems. To conclude, we present the guest editors' comments on the papers of this Special Issue.