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Today's global job market requires a worker-oriented focus that emphasises individuals' competencies and is steadily phasing out the task-oriented model that once dominated most work environments. Also impacting the world of work is the pressure to eliminate all forms of waste in manufacturing as companies strive to compete on a global scale. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), considered to be the next generation of lean thinking, shows great promise as a means of managing and tracking products through their entire lifecycle, from design through recycling. This paper proposes the creation of a competency model for engineers functioning in a PLM environment.

Industry reports that benefits of PLM are difficult to assess because the same benefit can be expressed as a function of time, cost, quality, or any combination. Based on a review of the PLM literature in an earlier study, a PLM Process Model and an initial list of PLM related metrics was generated and later confirmed through interviews with experienced PLM users. In the current study, the original PLM Process Model was refined and the list of metrics was subjected to an exploratory factor analysis in which specific metrics were found to be related to one of four factors: Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Outcomes. Based on the results of this study, a Product Lifecycle Implementation Maturity Model was developed that serves as a program-level guide in helping to quantify PLM performance in support of meeting organizational strategic goals.