Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM) Integrated Data/Decision Environment (IDE) [Suggest Change]
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4,953 page views
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Primary Functional Area : Life Cycle Logistics
Notional Decision Support Systems Interface Example
According to a Department of Defense Office of Business Transformation presentation on the DoD Product Lifecycle Management Initiative "Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) is an evolving set of business principles, organizational constructs and information management systems used in the governance of modern, technically complex and globally distributed assets. PLM is more about how an organization manages it's people, processes and products than any specific technology investment. It's about how product information is managed across organizational boundaries and how people interact with this information throughout a product's lifecycle. As a business management technique, PLM is product (item) vs. organizationally-centric and emphasizes intellectual property management and protection across organizational boundaries in collaborative, arms-reach business engagements."
According to a PEO IWS presentation, "CIMdata, an independent PLM organization defines PLM as:
- A strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business solutions that support the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product definition information
- Supporting the extended enterprise (customers, design and supply partners, etc.)
- Spanning from concept to end of life of a product or plant
- Integrating people, processes, business systems, and information
An Integrated Data/Decision Environment (IDE) is essential to performing Supportability Analysis within a truly Integrated Product and Process Development (IPPD) framework. An IDE should serve as a central knowledge repository for process, product evolution and history. It should facilitate integration and data exchange among Government and Industry business users and information systems that will interact with Weapon System Configuration Items during its life-cycle.
According to DAG Para 4.3.8, "The Program Manager and Systems Engineer, in conjunction with the Product Support Manager, should ensure that life-cycle requirements for weapon system-related data products and data rights are identified early and that appropriate contract provisions are put in place to enable deliveries of these products." The activities associated with Technical Data Management include storing, maintaining, controlling, using and exchanging data, necessitating that programs:
- "Budget for and fund the maintenance and upkeep of product data throughout the life cycle
- An Integrated Data Environment (IDE) or Product Life-cycle Management (PLM) system allows every activity involved with the program to create, store, access, manipulate, and exchange digital data.
- To the greatest extent practical, programs should use existing IDE/PLM infrastructure such as repositories operated by Commodity Commands and other organizations. (Program-unique IDEs are discouraged because the high infrastructure cost; further, multiple IDEs inhibit access, sharing, and reuse of data across programs.)
- Ensure all changes to the data are made in a timely manner and are documented in the program IDE or PLM system.
- Plan for and establish methods for access and reuse of product data by all personnel and organizations that perform life-cycle support activities."
According to the PEO IWS presentation, the three core or fundamental concepts of PLM are:
- Universal, secure, managed access and use of product definition information
- Maintaining the integrity of that product definition and related information throughout the life of the product or plant
- Managing and maintaining business processes used to create, manage, disseminate, share and use the information
An IDE allows the key players involved in the "should cost" efforts to communicate and understand how their respective functional areas impact the trade-studies to drive down the program's will cost estimates. Typically this includes program/project managers, engineers, producers/builders, maintainers, product support personnel, supply chain personnel, and quality assurance personnel.
The processes range from the creation of data and the management of data across the life cycle, to the use of the data to analyze options/opportunities in a disciplined/rigorous fashion in selecting the most affordable product based designs, operations, modernizations and product support functions. The IDE should manage varying levels of product life-cycle information related to any level of detail in the weapon system design or support structure. In addition, for the purposes of decision making, the IDE should be able to take into account the maturity, integrity and confidence levels of the weapon system information residing in it.
An IDE is not simply an Information Technology solution. The IDE is a strategic business approach that applies a consistent set of business process solutions supporting the collaborative creation, management, dissemination, and use of product data. As such it integrates the people, processes, business systems, and information associated with designing, acquiring, and supporting a weapon system over its entire life cycle. IDE capabilities can be categorized into the following three areas:
- Weapon System Configuration Management. Configuration management of the entire Weapon System, all of its configurations and related supporting equipment is essential to enabling traceability, accurate decision making and the creation/update of the entire product support package throughout the life cycle. The IDE manages this information from requirements through disposal, providing analysts and decision makers timely information in making the most affordable, supportable, and optimal decisions. The IDE should tie the engineering change process to the authoritative configuration with the purpose of providing a complete end-to-end solution for managing weapon systems detailed product configuration information.
- Weapon System Equipment Record. The IDE's equipment record capability, many times referred to as Product Data Management (PDM), provides the required management of all Weapon System data and related processes to support complete traceability, effectively, and engineering and product support analysis. Consequently the IDE should be able to associate all weapons system information to a configuration item, assembly, or system end item.
- Trade-Off Analysis and Decision Support. The IDE combines authoritative, detailed weapon system configuration and technical data to enable trade-off analysis, decision support, and optimal solutions for a weapon system. integrating M&S and cost estimating with weapon system configuration and technical data in the IDE allows for both macro level trade-off analysis as well as discrete trade-off analysis related to weapon system design and support decisions that occur as a part of the systems engineering and decision support processes. The supportability analysis should cost efforts should use M&S to quantify and help optimize design, support, fielding, reset, fleet management, and maintenance decisions. Combined with cost estimating tools, it allows for predictive "what-if" scenarios to both shape the programs budget and determine the impact of budget cuts or consequences of various courses of action as reflected in attached graphic.
A successful PLM IDE not only supports program O&S cost savings, but also serves a key enabler of efficient and effective system life cycle management and product support. If done right, ultimately PLM IDE enables Affordable System Operational Effectiveness (ASOE). A critical element of this concept is also the Integrated Product & Process Development [IPPD] work environment, which is enabled by integrated and interoperable PLM technologies/processes. To make this IPPD a reality, ensuring the inclusion and engagement of qualified Product Support Managers (PSM), Product Support Integrators (PSI), and Systems/ Sustaining Engineers across the life cycle is essential. The capabilities shown in the graphic above reflect the basic/inherent capabilities of integrated/interoperable PLM technologies/processes. A foundational tenet of Product Life-Cycle Management (PLM) Integrated Data/Decision Environment (IDE) is that Life Cycle Product Support Engineering, Outcome-based Life Cycle Management and true/continuous RAM-C-based Affordable System Operational Effectiveness (ASOE) analytics serve as integral, expected, and measured components of the Systems/Sustaining Engineering and Life Cycle Product Support processes.
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Page Information
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Page Views
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4,953
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Created on
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8/21/2013
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Modified on
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6/3/2016
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Last Reviewed
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2/1/2016
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