PLM for Multiple Lifecycle Product : Concepts, terminologies, processes for collaborative information management

Abstract: Natural raw materials are consumed at a rapid rate due to the ever-growing population and the endless pursuance of higher living standard of human kind, which alerts the manufacturing industry that resource crisis would come soon if no proactive actions are taken. Rapid manufacturing and consuming of products also brings about the serious environmental problems, e.g. over mining leads to surface water and groundwater pollution, energy consumption emits huge greenhouse gases, countless solid wastes threats human’s health and the sustainable use of land. Manufacturing industry is faced with the dilemma of either to keep the economic growth to meet the increasing society demand by immolating the earth and eco-system, or to save the earth by sacrificing economic growth. However, besides those two alternatives, we could rethink about developing innovative sustainable manufacturing strategies to find the balance point of environmental, economic and social sustainability. In this thesis, Multiple Lifecycle Product (MLP) is put forward as a solution towards sustainable manufacturing. It aims to shift the current open loop manufacturing model i.e. “take-make-dispose” to a seamless closed loop manufacturing model, which enables a product to have multiple lifecycles for maximizing the utilization of raw material, minimizing the consumption of energy and recapture the utmost value-added i.e. inputs in terms of labor, plant, equipment, etc. Resource Conservative Manufacturing (ResCoM) is such a closed loop manufacturing system developedbased on MLP concept, which implements MLP through a series of meticulous and collaborative works of product design, business model, closed loop supply chain and remanufacturing. Numberless information will be generated from the collaborative work during the implementation of MLP, and in each lifecycle of a MLP a wide range of product-related information has to be archived properly. Therefore, this research work starts to develop a new PLM for MLP, also called ResCoM PLM which will be one of the most powerful support tools for information management and decision-making of MLP manufacturing. As the beginning of ResCoM PLM research, this thesis targets to create a framework and foundation of ResCoM PLM research. Concepts and terminologies in the area of PLM for MLP are established systematically, and the ambiguous or overlapped concepts and terms presented in the state-of-the-art will be compared and explained. IDEF0 information model of MLP is createdby investigating the essential activities of implementing MLP, i.e. product design, business design, closed loop supply chain management and remanufacturing/manufacturing. Through elaborating the mutual interdependence, interactions, feedback and causalities among the essential activities and revealing the information and material flows of MLP manufacturing helps the readers to have deep understanding of MLP manufacturing and identify the issues of ResCoM PLM research.