Modules:Product Lifecycle Management
Contents |
Introduction
Product Lifecycle Management
Product Lifecycle Management, abbreviated PLM, is the set of functionalities that allows companies to manage the various aspects of introducing new products and concluding old products in their assortment. In the business context of Retail-companies, ranging from wholesale distributers to end-point outlets, the two most relevant aspects of PLM are supply chain and pricing:
- Supply Chain: Typically, products that are defined in a 'Prototype' PLM-status should not be sold; It should be avoided to create Sales Orders for these products. Likewise, products that are in a 'Ramp-Down' PLM-status should not be purhased nor manufactured again. These examples illustrate that the PLM-Status to which a product refers, determines which transactions are allowed and which are not allowed.
- Pricing: Pricing or a discount-level is influenced by the PLM-Status but not determined by it, like it is in Supply Chain. Example: In supply chain, purchase/manufacturing is typically not allowed in 'Ramp-Down' status: e.g., the limitation depends exclusively on the PLM-status. But the level of discount/promotions does not exclusively depend on the PLM-Status as there might be other factors that together determine the discounted price.
Manufacturing- or engineering-companies can add other aspects such as design or deployment that are out of scope in this approach.
Group of Inventory- and Supply Chain Management functionalities
The PLM functionality has been created in order to enhance the planning and execution functionalities in Openbravo. This is an important part of a set of functionalities that all together bring first class inventory and supply chain capabilities. The complete set is:
- Enhancements in the Supply Chain concerning PLANNING & EXECUTION of INCOMING INVENTORY:
- (17Q3) Distribution Orders. Integration aspects (configuration & operation) with Advanced Warehouse Operations are covered in this Wiki.
- FairShare ('Push'-Model)
- Enhancements in the Supply Chain concerning MANAGEMENT of IN-HOUSE INVENTORY:
- (17Q1) Unit of Measure Conversions. Integration aspects (configuration & operation) with Advanced Warehouse Operations are covered in this Wiki.
- (17Q3) Inventory Status. Integration aspects (configuration & operation) with Advanced Warehouse Operations are covered in this Wiki.
- (18Q2) Referenced Inventory. Integration aspects (configuration & operation) with Advanced Warehouse Operations are covered in this Wiki.
- (17Q4) Advanced Warehouse Operations, including mobile inventory procedures.
- Advanced Warehouse Operations for Manufacturing
- Enhancements in the Supply Chain concerning PLANNING & EXECUTION of OUTGOING INVENTORY:
- (17Q3) Distribution Orders. Integration aspects (configuration & operation) with Advanced Warehouse Operations are covered in this Wiki.
- Vehicle and Transport management
- Enhancements in Product Life Cycle Management:
- (18Q3) Product Life Cycle Management (this wiki).
Licences
- License: Commercial
- Category: PLM-Status|Product in Core, PLM-Status|Assortment in Commerce Suite
Product Lifecycle Management Functionality
PLM-Status definition
The PLM-status is a new column that will be added to the product definition and to the assortment. Both are optional in the initial release of this module but the column in the product definition will be converted to mandatory in a future release. The value of this column is selected from predefined values as created in the PLM-Status window. These PLM-status-values are managed on System Administrator level and define which transactions are allowed.
The PLM-module will come with the following predefined PLM-Status, but can be expanded at will:
| Status | Description | Restrict Sale from POS | Restrict Sale from Back-End | Restrict Sale if Out-of-Stock (org) | Restrict Distribution Order Issue (Roadmap) | Restrict Purchase (Roadmap) | Restrict Manufacture (Roadmap) | Restrict Distribution Order Receipt (Roadmap) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prototype | Product in investigation | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Ramp-Up | Introduction phase | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Mature | Maturity phase | No | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Ramp-Down | Concluding phase | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Obsolete | Out of Catalogue | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Adjustments to existing processes
the system should check, in the relevant processes, if the transaction is restricted according to the PLM-status of the relevant product. If restricted, an error message is shown "Can not create this line for a product in PLM-status <PLM-Status>.