Recommendations to Improve the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Capability Fulfillment Process of the Case Company

The objective of the study was to recommend improvements for the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Capability Fulfillment process of the case company. PLM Capability Fulfillment process has an increasing importance for the success of the case company in the evolving market environment. This thesis followed the design research approach and included four stages. The first stage was a current state analysis utilizing various methods and sources to map the process as well as identify the key improvement areas to improve based on the strengths and weaknesses. In the second stage the existing literature was reviewed to find best practices to address the identified weaknesses and compiled into the conceptual framework. The third stage included co-creating initial recommendations with key stakeholders to improve the identified key improvement areas. The fourth stage included validation and prioritization of the initial recommendations based on the feedback received from the case company executive. In the current state analysis, a variety of strengths and weaknesses were identified and categorized based on their characteristics and areas of occurrence. The selection of key areas for improvement emphasized the value that would be gained by improving the weaknesses associated with them. Additionally, the possibility of additional improvements to the process that were not included in the scope of this study was evaluated and considered outside of this thesis. The outcome of this thesis is a validated set of recommendations to improve the identified weaknesses and a roadmap to implement the recommendations. By improving the process, the case company will benefit significantly by having a simple and standardized process for handling all PLM Capabilities and build a strong foundation for knowledge management across organization