Towards Life Cycle Management for Product and System Configurations: Required Improvements in Business Processes and Information Systems

Current market trends force component manufacturers to offer not only separate products or components but also whole integrated solutions. However, efficient management of product life cycle for such solutions requires significant changes both in business processes and in information systems. The paper presents major findings in this area aimed at improving life cycle support for configurable products and systems. The findings are results of ongoing research and IT optimization projects carried out in the company Festo AG & Co KG. However, the results can give significant input to achieve benefits for component manufacturers that tend to become system vendors in general.