What is Product Lifecycle Management?

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It's a concept that's been borrowed from manufacturing. All products, including power plants, buildings and bridges, have lifecycles, and any product's lifecycle passes through different phases. Generally speaking, the lifecycle of a building begins with the concept phase, followed by the design phase, the construction phase, the operational phase and eventually the demolition and disposal phases. Each phase is usually managed by different organizations, each with its own software tools, and each with its own limited set of responsibilities and objectives. From a global, or "product lifecycle" perspective, such a disjointed process can be inefficient and costly.

In an effort to improve the productivity, quality and economy of the process, software developers, design professionals, owners and government organizations are collaborating to produce a comprehensive schema for integrating the data used to design, build, operate and maintain building projects throughout all phases. This schema is generally referred to as Lifecycle Engineering, or Product Lifecycle Management, and in order for it to work product data has to be able to flow between applications and along the value chain.

Modern Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools are designed to assimilate and distribute this information throughout the virtual enterprise. Generally speaking, PLM systems will integrate product, resource and process data from each stage of a product's lifecycle into a collaborative management environment, enabling engineers, suppliers, contractors and owners to share the same data as it applies to their respective functions.