An integration framework for product lifecycle management

The need for integrating business and technical information systems, allowing partners to collaborate effectively in creating innovative products, has motivated the design and deployment of a novel integration framework for product lifecycle management. The time is ripe for such an integration framework because of the convergence of three important developments, almost in a perfect storm: (1) maturity of standardized product data and meta-data models, and standardized engineering and business processes; (2) emergence of service-oriented architecture for information sharing; and (3) availability of robust middleware to implement them. These developments allow engineering and business objects and processes to be built or composed as modular pieces of software in the form of services that can communicate with each other and be used across different parts of a business. These modular software pieces can be reused and reconfigured in new ways as business conditions change, thereby saving time and money for companies. This paper describes the business and technical aspects of an integration framework for product lifecycle management using open standards and service-oriented architecture.