Through-life integration using PLM

It is widely agreed that organisations would benefit from a PLM implementation founded on a standard structure that integrates through-life information and knowledge. Thus, this paper describes a PLM data structure that provides a standard repository of data through all the stages of the lifecycle: conception, manufacture, and operation. This structure classifies the data into project, product, process and resource, and has been implemented into the PDM system Teamcenter Engineering as part of a case study with a vacuum pump manufacturer. A methodology to implement a knowledge structure from an ontology editor into PDM system is also presented.