Digital representation of smart products by integrating Product Lifecycle Management and Application Lifecycle Management

Abstract

Purpose: Keeping the product quality good within the range of budget especially when product tend to be “smarter” in this digitalization era. Those smart products are mechatronic products which includes both hardware and software parts. Therefore managing products must include both hardware and software management in the whole product lifecycle management. This research aims to study the benefits of successful implementation of Application Lifecycle Management tool and integrate it with Product Lifecycle Management tool in a manufacturing organizations in terms of improving data traceability, cost efficiency and product quality. Design/methodology/approach: The Design Science Research approach is applied and includes an artefact development process. The research philosophy follows pragmatism with an inductive approach. The research data have been collected through literature review and 10 interview data of tool requirements and user feedback on the tool at software development centre of a high precision instruments producing company METTLER TOLEDO International based in Greifensee, Switzerland. Findings: The main results of this research show that the proper application lifecycle management tool in place already brings a sufficient improvements due to its powerful functionalities to support the different processes of different disciplines in the software development process. Moreover the integration of the two tools would bring even further benefits in the whole smart product producing process. Business implications: The main implications businesses can take from this study is, proper application lifecycle management tool in a different disciplines of software development process can increase productivity, cost saving and increase product quality. Orginality/ Value: The contribution of the researcher is detailed study of requirements engineering discipline’s requirements for a wished tool in the software development process of the partner company METTLER TOLEDO International.