This paper presents the concept of semi-autonomous product-centric information management based on the Product Avatar (PA) concept, discussing the overall concept of distributed and decentralised information management relevant to individual product items and analyses the requirements the concept generates. In that context, it aims at stimulating discussion on the pragmatic utilisation of emerging technologies, such as RFID, wireless networking and ubiquitous computing. This paper further illustrates the benefits of the application of the PA concept in examples related to PLM against a scenario based on a network of organisations connected to the maintenance, repair and operation processes of a product.

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This paper presents an approach for semi-autonomous product-centric information management based on the Product Avatar concept, discussing the overall concept of distributed and decentralised information management relevant to individual product items and analyses the requirements the concept generates. In that context, it aims at stimulating discussion on the pragmatic utilisation of emerging technologies, such as RFlD, wireless networking and ubiquitous computing. This paper further illustrates the benefits of the application of the Product Avatar concept in examples related to PLM against a scenario based on a network of organisations connected to the maintenance, repair and operation processes of a product.

A manufactured product usually has a great amount of design knowledge and other product information associated with it in CAD drawings and other technical documentation. Today, such product information mainly enables preventive maintenance of products. By collecting usage, performance and maintenance information about the product, it could be possible to perform more predictive maintenance. The key issue is to document product information in a way that would enable analysing the relation between usage parameters and actual product failures. Semantic networks are here proposed as an intermediate knowledge representation format for combining such static and dynamic product information.