Ultimate Product Life Cycle Management Guide

The following are other lifecycles and concepts that you may encounter in the literature, blogs, and possibly in conversation with other professionals. Some are intimately related to PLM, and some are more distant.

Product and Process Lifecycle Management

Product and Process Life Cycle Management (PPLM) is a part of regular PLM, but for regulated fields such as chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturing. In these industries, the agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tightly regulates the process for manufacturing using either industry specifications or product-specific specifications. These specifications are essentially a “recipe” for manufacturing and are documented each time at production. These requirements and documentation are in place to protect the public and to ensure the same results each time you manufacture the product. 

The Pyramid of Production Systems

According to Behnam Malakooti, there are five main objectives for production. These include productivity, cost, quality, flexibility, and sustainability. The best of all of these concepts gives the pinnacle of manufacturing. These are represented as a pyramid, with different combinations of objectives moving up the pyramid, the apex of the pyramid as the very best of these five, and the lowest of these five as the base. He says that the tip of this pyramid is not realistic. 

Source: Behnam Malakooti

Industry Life Cycle Analysis

The industry life cycle analysis is a much higher-level PLC that is specific to each industry, though it looks a lot like the PLC. There are four similar stages: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. However, the industry life cycle analysis has a stage before decline that is stability. Strategic planners use the industry life cycle analysis when they are considering investing in certain industries in the market to determine risk.

The Economic Cycle 

The economic or business cycle is the up and down movement that an economy experiences over a period. One cycle is an expansion, peak, contraction, and trough. The peak is the top of the cycle, and the trough is the bottom. You measure the cycle from the peak to the trough. These cycles are not at regular intervals, but have identifiable signs. Economic cycles are similar to a product life cycle, but they are for the full economy and represent all of the products on the market. 

The Accounting Cycle

The accounting cycle is internal to each company and starts when a transaction occurs in a time period. This cycle includes all the transactions in your financial statement for your period, and happen monthly, quarterly, and annually. The transactions include all your received invoices and sales. You start with your journal entries, and enter them  into your general ledgers, which compiles your unadjusted trial ledger. At the end of the period, you adjust your entries. These corrections are normal and occur because of the progress of your business. Then, you prepare a trial balance and financial statements. You then close your period. Your closing entries put your company’s net income into retained earnings. Lastly, you prepare a closing trial balance to ensure that everything matches. 

Manufacturing Industry Life Cycles

The manufacturing industry has several life cycles. These include the product life cycles that we have stressed in this guide, the asset life cycles, and the project life cycles. 

The Asset Lifecycle

Life cycle asset management is a part of the manufacturing environment because it takes into account the manufacturing infrastructure such as facilities and equipment. The main phases are design, commissioning of the designs, operation and maintenance, and decommissioning. 

The Project Life Cycle

The project life cycle in a manufacturing environment is also more about the products you’re manufacturing, although you can apply it to any project. These are the drivers of internal change. The stages are initiation (which includes whether a product is feasible), planning (which includes development), execution (which includes testing), and closure (which is the launch and production illustration request (PIR)).

Integrating the Manufacturing Life Cycles

It is important to know where these life cycles integrate. Their successful integration is critical for success in manufacturing. For the project life cycle and the asset life cycle, the integration point is during the project execution and during the asset design. For the asset life cycle and the PLC, the integration point is during the asset operation and the PLC cycle’s beginning. These integration points are important to getting your company used to addressing the other cycles concurrently.