Product Lifecycle Management

In the mechanical engineering field, product lifecycle management (PLM) is one of the most important concepts. PLM is the engineering concept of designing objects from their ideological beginnings to their disposal. If you want to produce an effective item, it’s very important that you know its lifecycle. PLM helps guide engineers to develop items that are ethical as well as profitable.

            The creative development of an item or idea is a good start. Creating a design concept, building prototypes, and finding resources all fall under the development. Collecting data and thinking all the way through PLM during the design process are very important. One should minimize resource usage in order to create the most efficient items as well as the most conservative items. A company wants to output high quality items, but at the same time needs to be able to profit from the item or will not produce it. The creative development of an item is only the beginning though.

Distribution and logistics of your item also come into play. Knowing geographically where your item will be used is also important. If you were to help deploy a new nuclear power plant for the Chicago area, you would not want a nuclear power core to decay in the middle of downtown Chicago. You need to be aware the safety of your item and the danger it can cause. The engineers responsible for a man-made disaster are held liable unless they can prove otherwise. Being responsible in this area is key to PLM.

You also need to know when the item will be highly effective and no longer effective. This ties in distribution and logistics in saying that the item you create needs to be deployed when it will be most effective. It also needs to be disposed of when it is no longer effective. If you genetically modify a banana to ripen five days after it is picked, it better be on the shelves at the grocery store before those five days are up. If it is not, it will have to be disposed of in a way that does not affect normal bananas.

Finally, you need to know what you will do with the item when you have to dispose of it. Will the item be recyclable? Will it be put in a landfill? Will it be burned? Are there any harmful substances inside this item? In what way can I dispose of this item without causing danger to people? All of these questions fall under this category and they are very important to note in PLM. If you are a company creating toys for a McDonald’s Happy Meal and you decide to use lead paint just on the basis that it is cheaper, you honestly did not think through PLM in development of the item. The lead paint is more profitable for the company to use, but the disposal of these toys will be hazardous and this puts serious risk to the health of the children. Disposal of the item ties back into the design concept as you need to be aware of the resources that you use. This is the end of the PLM cycle and it is very important.

Product lifecycle management is a big part of engineering. It is a broad concept and it is key in the grand theorem of engineering. From start to finish, one needs to know everything about the development, implication, and consequences of something new. It also is key in developing items that are profitable as well as people and earth friendly.

This image is very good at summing up this post: