Talk:Product life cycle management

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==Life Cycles==even i strongly feel that there is a strong misconception regarding the explanation provided.hope get the correct information soon. I found that there is huge misconcption about what a "product life cycle" is

  • Engineering perspective (ME & EE): the "product life cycle" includes the phases development, production/operations, utilization, and ends with disposal.
  • Business Science & Economics: the "product life cycle" includes the stages emergent, growth, and mature.

I guess we are fine that these "product life cycles" are very different, isn't? (different units of analysis, different dimensions and so forth)

  • The engineering interpretation of a "product life cycle" corrosponds one-to-one what is defined by these ISO14000 Life cycle assessment (LCA) - Yes, LIFE-CYCLE - in most cases the life cycle of a PHYSICAL PRODUCT!!! (By the way the article Life cycle assessment is very lousy)
  • What is always label as "product life cycle" by "New Product Development" scholars (more clearly the PDMA people, and management consultants) from the business science and economics domain is actually called "product cycle" (compare to the economist Vernon, 1966)

What to do to get out of this big confusion? Seperate both, and link them to a CATEGORY: Life Cycle, and Product Development.


A CATEGORY: Life Cycle may also include

These conceptual models are somewhat related and very similar.


One hint: Avoid the word "management" because everything and anything is "management" nowadays (Google result: 782,000,000)

One word to "Product Lifecycle Management" (PLM). That is an IT system that support the "product life cycle (engineering)". Thus, PLM is mean of the "product life cycle (engineering)", but not the concept itself. Next to PLM, several other means are existing, e.g. CIM, ERP, etc.

Contents

[edit] Article name - PLC vs PLM

[edit] Comments from Gary Walker

A Wikipedia article on "Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)" has a very similar title but very different contents and scope.

This "Product Life Cycle Management" article has contents and scope much more in line with what I was expecting for this title. The other "PLM" article seems too narrow in focus and too IT-oriented.

Could someone provide a justification for the two similar titles and a short description as to how they differ?

--Gary Walker, gwlucca@yahoo.com

[edit] Comments from Broccoli

I think this page is not well written. I came here for some specific information and I find parts of the text properly informative and others that sound high-schoolish. Could someone work on this? To comment on Gary Wasker's observation, Product Life Cycle is one thing and how to manage it is another and PLM is something else again. These could be two or even three Wilipedia entries or could be one coherent one that began by explaining what product life cycles are, what makes them fast and slow, and how understanding of product life cycles should affect business strategy and planning. The merged article could then go on, in another section, to talk about PLM and then in a third section how a firm pro-actively directs and manages the life cycle of a product to extract maximum profit. This would end up, though, as a very long and complex entry that might better be three stand-alones.

203.188.14.198 09:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC) Broccoli

[edit] 'wikipedia subject bias'

I find this phenomena prevalent of wikipedia and extremely frustrating.

When you find two terms that appear to be alike the solution is not to merge the terms or relace one with another, the solution is to discover why two terms exist by conducting research! What is being demonstrated is what I would called 'wikipedia subject bias' where the definition of terms on wikipedia is biased toward the subject discipline of wikipedia users with a complete disregard for the academic community as a whole from whom these 'rejected terms' originate. These terms exist for a reason! If one investigates why, one might discover a plerothra of encyplopedic information....

Firstly academics use these terms differently for a reason and they don't write their definitions for the terms they use in textbooks of other disciplines.

The act of wikiepedia users merging articles of similar terms that are used in different disciplines is analogous to the geographer consulting a physics textbook to look up a definition. We need to be inclusionist and stop merging terms so that we allow specific content to develop. There is nothing wrong with wikipedia being specialised, the last thing we need is to be generalised. Quite simply, subjects often have different definitions of similar concepts, it is like that for good reason and wikipedia shouldn't be trying to change what the academic community has chosen to be. Supposed 11:35, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comments from 66.240.20.226

I agree, I don't think that this should be merged with Software Life Cycle. I am an IT professional, and even I understand that our definition is too narrow for this topic. These topics should not be merged...simply referenced.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.240.20.226 (talk • contribs) 13:06, 18 May 2006

The differentiation has been noted and is being worked. Talk:Product_Lifecycle_Management and more recently Product_lifecycle.
'wiki' is a computational phenomenon despite being fed by humans (after all, those beings meet only in virtual space as far as I can surmise (there are some sys admins somewhere on the planet touching actual hardware)). Things like PLM actually deal with processes that touch matter thereby humans.
'software' is only one type of product, though in many cases it has a very wide touch (let's list the ways!!!). jmswtlk 22:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Advertising should be what?

the section breaks off halfway through a sentence. I'd fix it but I am not sure what advertising should be. Came here as a user to read some stuff on hte subject. I did flag it for cleanup!

Elinruby 13:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)elinruby

[edit] Lessons of the PLC

In my opinion, this section adds to the content of the current page and lends some contextual connection to Product_Lifecycle_Management (a relative newcomer (even if it's a rework of former efforts) that is enabled by general advances, such as computer science, applied science, materials, manufacturing, ...

It seems to be oriented to the consumer goods. One can argue from an entirely different framework, namely technology (computers, cars, military jets, commercial airplane programs) where there is noted obsolescence (yet even old aircraft sit on the desert awaiting some future fate, I'm still using an antiquated I386 now and then)). Perhaps, it's these types that motivate the PLM thrust.

Could we title the Section "Analysis" and talk lessons, futures, and related?jmswtlk 21:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unit cost line not correct

In the graph provided, there is a subtle but important detail overlooked. As product enter the "decline stage", volume drops and costs INCREASE. The model here shows decreasing costs but that is more often not the case. During the Growth and Maturity stages, there is usually significant work done to reduce costs. When a product starts its decline, most of the easy changes to lower cost are done and the excitement of working on a growing product is also gone. Additionally, as the volume drops, overhead rises as a percent of cost. The reason this is important is that managing a declining product is just as important as managing a growing one. In all cases, action must continue to be taken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.30.0.49 (talk • contribs) 14:39, 19 September 200


I think it depends in your industry, and your product. my name is harrison kew For physical goods tooling costs can be high, but once set up they can be depreciated over a number of years. once fully depreciated, yes, costs may go down.
I'm not sure the costs apply at all to sofware, where replication costs are near zero but upfront R&D costs are higher. So its strange that this page is redirected to from Software Life Cycle. I fear someone will have to write an up to date article on the topic comparing costs and actual selling price of closed source, open source and software-as-a-service applictions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SteveLoughran (talk • contribs) 18:50, 10 February 2007 (UTC).