Managing the Product Configuration throughout the Lifecycle

PLM11-8th International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 396 Managing the Product Configuration throughout the Lifecycle Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz University of Kaiserslauten Gottlieb-Daimler-Str. Geb. 44 Fax +49 631 205 3872 and Tel +49 631 205 4328 eigner@mv.uni-kl.de, fehrenz@mv.uni-kl.de Abstract: Companies have to engineer, manufacture and distribute innovative products at best quality and they must dynamically adapt to new and changing global markets. Globalization is not the only trend companies are faced. To increase their competitive position in today s global marketplace, companies have to control the product development process and the growing complexity of products. Product updates, design changes, recalls and unproductive work are examples caused by inefficient information sourcing. Configuration Management (CM) as a core process within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has the task to implement and monitor such complex changes influenced by customers, suppliers and other engineering stakeholders on all disciplines within the supply chain.cm assures the consistency of each product in terms of managing the influence between requirements, functional and physical characteristics, design and documentation. But a number of challenges have to be solved technical and organizational, before CM can be implemented in a company successfully. Keyword: Product Lifecycle Management (PLM),Configuration Management (CM), Engineering Change Management (ECM) 1 1 Introduction To increase their competitive position in today s global marketplace, companies are facing a host of increasingly complex challenges that, taken together, have the power to make or break an organization going forward. Just consider the following trends: Adapt to new and changing markets. Reduced cycle times, cost pressures and growing requirements Permanent transformation of the product development process. Result from changing market conditions, requirements for the product or from a customer perspective. Increase of product complexity as a result of a growing multimarket. Growing globalization of value chains and a growing use of interdisciplinary communication technologies, and problems of inconsistent communication between constituents located in different cultures and time zones. The sum of these factors is causing a far-reaching change of requirements regarding methods and IT solutions for the product development process. All of these methods are in pursuit of a common approach to supporting the complete product lifecycle, from the IFIP Working Group 5.1, 2011

PLM Adoption Through Statistical Analysis 397 very early phase of requirements collection, down to end-of-life recycling across all disciplines (mechanical engineering, electric/electronic engineering, software, and services) across departments and locations (Image 1) [3, 4, 5]. On an IT level, the aforementioned methods are supported through modern authoring systems (CAD, CAM, CAE), as well as through corresponding simulation and visualization technologies. PLM (product lifecycle management) solutions are hereby providing the functional and administrative backbones. Configuration Management (CM) as a core process within PLM has the task to implement and monitor such complex changes influenced by the multi-disciplinary product development process shown in Figure 1. But before CM can be implemented in a company successfully a number of challenges have to be solved technical and organizational [3]. Figure 1 Multi-disciplinary product development [3] It is necessary to define the role of CM around the growing complexity of products. According to this it is also necessary to define the trend of CM across the industries and get an answer about the consideration to implement a successful CM. Finally a outlook about CM as future business driver. 2 Definition and Role of Configuration Management (CM) The driving factor behind the current need to optimize Configuration Management (CM) revolves around the growing complexity of products. CM was originally developed as a solution approach in the 1950 s in the Aerospace industry. To understand the inner machinations of CM, it is necessary to have a look at its prerequisites; The product model and the product data management based on it, and The process model and the process management based non it. [2, 4, 5] Product models have the objective of representing products, including all relevant related information across the complete lifecycle. A product model consists of the component of product master data, which, on an attribute level, is represented through an identifying number, potentially a classification, a revision (or version) and a denomination. The product model is complemented by a product structure and the related documents. For a number of reasons, product structures are defined in a variety of different approaches, usually referred to as views. The representations in Figure 2 show views of the product structure across the product lifecycle.

398 Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz Figure 2 The product structure in different phases of the life cycle There is also a relationship between product components and documents. Every document entry (meta data) can itself be connected with any given number of files, e.g., CAD native or neutral formats. With regards to parts and documents numbers and revisions, there is a variety of implementation approaches defined by whatever organizational approach is adopted by the individual enterprise. The process model in the environment of product development describes the representation of technical and organizational business processes. Processes are typically represented graphically as status and transition diagrams (Figure 3). Figure 3 Release and Change process. Processes are applied to the elements of the product model. By applying the rules, relationships and control mechanisms, the consequences of changes to the managed product are automatically followed through. Within the model there is documentation of: where the part is used, who designs, manufactures and supplies it,

PLM Adoption Through Statistical Analysis 399 who initiated or declined a change request, when the change was implemented, when the change went into production, and why the change was made. The identification of a production baseline is enabled through the so called Effectivity. It represents the period of validity of the configured product components and documents. Depending on the type of individual representation, it is defined by: The date or the revision (primarily consumer goods or products manufactured in high volume) Or, additionally the so called serial number. This is a continuous number to identify every item, assembly or part. A configuration model enables the derivation of any given design, manufacturing, delivery, or operating baseline. The focus is on the creation and reconstruction of a product definition. Configuration management represents, on the one hand, the relationship between product data and documents, and, on the other hand, the varying product configuration across a time-limited change index or a serial number [2, 5]. ANSI (American National Standards Institute), in collaboration with EIA (Electronic Industries Alliance), has published the following definition of CM, which is widely recognized as a standard: "Configuration Management... is a management process for establishing and maintaining consistency of a product's performance, its functional and physical attributes, with its requirements, design and operational information, throughout its life." The latest internationally accepted definition is represented by ISO 10007 (2003): "configuration management coordinated activities to direct and control configuration" in which configuration denominates interrelated functional and physical characteristics of a product defined in requirements for product design, realization, verification, operation and support". Figure 4 Configuration management and interaction with the PPS System.

400 Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz According to these standards, CM is a management discipline that is used across the complete lifecycle of a product in order to ensure the transparency and control of its functional and physical characteristics. Past configurations represent all designed and/or manufactured versions. The present configuration is the version of the product that is presently in production. It is typically managed in a PPS system driving the Supply Chain and/or Manufacturing/Assembly. Future configurations are product and document structures that are presently undergoing a change, but are not yet released for production (Figure 4). In addition, a product configuration is also determined by customer-specific choices from several variants or alternatives. 3 What are the trends in Configuration Management across industries? Analyzing the state-of-the-art it is evident that most organizations have a long way to go if they want to introduce a comprehensive and integrated CM solution. The main task in the definition of a configuration management process is to select a sensible and manageable quantity of Configured Items and to reduce the number of systems employed in the process. The key objectives for the selection are: The integration across the product life cycle, The integration across the different disciplines, and The integration of the Supply Chain. For the integration of the product lifecycle from a contemporary state-of-the-art, the components of the engineering and manufacturing BOM have to be defined as CI. It is, however, problematic that the two BOMs typically are managed in different IT systems. More forward-looking projects in the industry integrate the requirement was well functional structures into the process. The integration of the disciplines can be located on a similar level. According to the key competence of an individual enterprise, the focal emphasis of a CM solution will be placed on the respective discipline. Figure 5 Integration of Case Tools and PLM Backbone. In today s Automotive and Aerospace industries, it is common to define mechanical and electrical/electronic components as CI s. However, in many cases, they are managed in different systems. Software is typically created in CASE tools and revisioned independently. While mechanical and electrical/electronic components can be represented within the existing structures of a PLM environment, the management of

PLM Adoption Through Statistical Analysis 401 software builds is more complex. On the one hand, the frequency of changes is higher by orders of magnitude, and, on the other hand, the CASE tools have change mechanisms of their own to manage revisions, baselines and configurations. A method of integrating CASE tools and PLM environments is represented in Figure 5. The integration of the supply chain is also not fully implemented. The High Tech industry is leading the way, as it has defined PDX standards to integrate suppliers within its standardization organization. Similar approaches are pursued by the VDA automotive manufacturers association in Germany. The objective of these initiatives is to harmonize change processes between project partners and to minimize the costs related to the implementation of change requests. An additional aspect of Configuration Management is represented by the problems related to managing variants. Products are comprised of Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz several variants on a parts and assembly level. The management of variants is of cardinal importance for the Purchasing Department, as the number of potential product variants can be extremely high. For an exemplary representation of variant complexity, we will take a look at the front seat of a passenger car. The influencing categories are represented in Figure 6, together with their respective specifications. Figure 6 Example of an auto seat variant [6]. With unrestricted combinations (i.e. assuming that no manufacturability rules have to be considered), the specification categories lead to the following number of variants: 2 * 2 * 2 * 3 * 2 * 3 * 2 * 3 = 864. Traceability of product variants delivered to the customer, in conjunction with the revisions created in the change process, are also part of configuration management. In the case of a failure of a passenger vehicle, it is necessary to show the selected revisions for each variant of the seat.

402 Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz 4 What are the top considerations for CM implementation? It is quite evident that CM builds on a consolidated representation of product structures. Main elements are therefore also requirements for an implementation are: Linking of lifecycles via associated product structures, Derivation of view for different applications. Associativity of product structures means the linking of different product structures across the phases of a product lifecycle. Figure 7 confronts a theoretical solution with today s industry reality with the management of product structures in disconnected IT systems. Figure 7 Associative product structures. In most cases, the different product structures are managed in disconnected legacy systems, such as RM (requirements management), PDM (product data management), MPM (Manufacturing Process Management), MRP (Material Resource Planning) and ASM (After Sales Management), or they are not represented at all, just as functional product structures are not used. If software and electronics prevail in a product portfolio, it is quite common that solutions for Systems Engineering (SE) and non-hierarchical product structures are used for the initial phase of requirements and concept. An example would be model descriptions based on SysML, Modelica or similar authoring tools (Figure 8). But this approach typically does not comprise an integration of early product development phases with the ebom. Figure 8 Mixture of Systems Engineering approaches and conventional product structures in High tech industry.

PLM Adoption Through Statistical Analysis 403 Modern PLM approaches are capable of managing product structures starting from the requirements down to the processes, both in a hierarchical and in a network-based approach, within a consistent and common data base. This framework provides the foundation to enable associative product structures in a creating and in an executing system environment. The prerequisite for this approach is an intelligent coupling of PLM and MRP. Based on a networking of information through associative product structures or through intelligently integrated legacy systems and through a skilful assignment of attributes, the users are able to generate different views (Figure 9). Both associativity and generation of different views supports the concept of a single source of truth, which is an indispensible prerequisite for any approach to configuration management across the product lifecycle. To enable decisions for dependent consequent changes, any change of a product and production -relevant information must therefore have visibility into all related information across the complete life-cycle. Figure 9 Derivation of views from associative product structures. To realize these requirements it is also necessary to have a look to the PLM architecture. The main difficulty associated with today s architecture lies in the coordination of information items and processes between the PLM-defined Design Chain and the MRPdefined Supply Chain. The difficulty is aggravated by the fact that MRP systems typically do not have the freedom to adapt or customize both product and process models. Therefore, in many cases, a common process definition is based on the least common denominator. Frequently, a revisioning of product master data sets in MRP is only viable via the associated documents. In particular, in some leading organizations, the latter issue leads to a discussion around an integrated architecture that builds on a common backbone for product structure, ECM and CM, both for the design chain and the supply chain. In this approach, the different, instantiated MRP systems are reduced to mere execution systems that pull their information from the common backbone (Figure 10). The justification of the above solution lies in a comprehensive support of the vision of a single source of truth through a common database, as well as in the performance and

404 Martin Eigner, Aline Fehrenz flexibility of PLM systems that are capable of covering the growing complexity of today s products and processes. Figure 10 Modern architecture for a common PS, ECM and CM backbone. 5 How does Configuration Management drive business value? In any fast moving business agility is a significant contribution to business success. Agility requires a high degree of process efficiency: quick response to new and changing requirements of the customer and the resulting changes in the products and means of production is an essential quality feature of any business. CM is a core process of a company whose job it is to implement and monitor the changes of customers, suppliers and other engineering stakeholders on all disciplines, internal and external organizational units within the supply chain these process starts from requirement, styling, and engineering till process planning, manufacturing, operating and recycling. Thus CM assures the consistency of each product or service in terms of requirements, functional and physical characteristics, design and documentation. This builds on a well-functioning product and process management. The Aberdeen Group shows that quality, time to market and costs, the main reasons for the optimization of the CM in the company are (Figure 11). The costs include influencing the entire life cycle costs and thus directly to the company's profits. This makes CM a key driver of a company's profitability [1]. Figure 11 Pressures Driving Improvements in Configuration Management (Source Aberdeen Group 2007) [1]

PLM Adoption Through Statistical Analysis 405 Therefore it becomes clear that CM has a significant impact on the profitability of a product throughout its life cycle. Based on Aberdeen Group, however, a number of challenges have to be solved technical and organizational before CM can be implemented in a company successfully: Maintaining accuracy of BOMs, Management of engineering changes across configurations, Keeping down-stream BOMs in sync with engineering changes and, Managing BOMs and engineering changes across variant configurations [1]. References 1 AberdeenGroup (2007) `The Configuration Management Benchmark Report`, http://www.plm.automation.siemens.com/en_us/images/aberdeen_- _the_configuration_management_benchmark_report_07-02-28_tcm1023-46848.pdf 2 Dalgarno, M.; Beuche, D. (2007) `Variant Management`, 3rd British Computer Society Configuration Management Specialist Group Conference, Oxford/GB, 15.-16.05.2007. 3 Eigner, M.; Stelzer, R. (2009) `Product Lifecycle Management; Ein Leitfaden für Product Development und Lifecycle Management` 2.Aufl., Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, - ISBN-10: 3540443738; ISBN-13: 978-3540443735. 4 Hallerbach, A.; Bauer, T. (2010) `Configuration and Management of Process Variants`; International Handbook on Business Process Management, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 237-255. 5 PTC (2011) `Defining PLM - Critical "must have" capabilities`, PTC White Paper Part 2, http://www.ptc.com/solutions/product-lifecycle-management/index.htm.