Abstract. Complex product development process in global companies usually consists of several stages involving different software systems and numerous users from various departments and centers. Automation of this process assumes changes in company's workflows, data models and software systems used. As a result, implementation of such changes in large companies faces a lot of difficulties because business process cannot be stopped to switch between old and new workflows, old and new software systems, etc. The paper represents an ongoing long-term project aimed at knowledge management for multi-level complex product development at Festo AG&Co KG. It is based on the central product ontology describing product classification, their properties and configuration & compatibility restrictions. The developed system complex significantly simplifies and speeds up the process of product development and maintenance.
Increasing competition and appearance of new information and communication technologies makes companies to introduce new production and marketing models. The paper shares the experiences of improving PLM information management at an automation equipment manufacturer caused by implementation of product-service systems and their customer-driven configuration. Though the research results are based on the analysis of one company, the presented work can give significant input to achieve benefits for component manufacturers that tend to become system vendors in general.
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