Seit einiger Zeit hat die Industrie hier die enge Verzahnung ihrer Güterproduktion mit Dienstleistungen, auch oft als Services oder Lösungen bezeichnet, als strategische Option erkannt. Der Vorteil einer engen Verflechtung von Produkt und Dienstleistung ist, dass insbesondere im Pre- und Aftersales-Bereich neue Wertschöpfungsmöglichkeiten entstehen, die auf dem einzigartigen Know-How und dem Wissen der anbietenden Unternehmen basieren. Zunehmend wird über solche Lösungen sogar der größere Anteil der Wertschöpfung für das Unternehmen erzielt, so dass die Bedeutung solcher Angebote beständig zunimmt. Der vorliegenden Band dokumentiert die Arbeit des Verbundvorhabens „Produkt-Dienstleistung-Lifecycle-Management“, welches von 2011-2014 den Lehrstuhl für Betriebliche Informationssysteme an der Universität Leipzig zusammen mit Unternehmen ATB Arbeit, Technik und Bildung GmbH, CADsys GmbH, Amtech GmbH und SITEC GmbH aus Chemnnitz realisiert und mit Mitteln der Europäischen Union und des Freistaates Sachsen durch das Programm FuE-Projektförderung der SAB finanziert wurde. Erstmalig werden integrierte Konzepte und Werkzeuge für ein Lebenszyklusmanagement in der Verbindung von Produktion und begleitenden Dienstleistungen vorgestellt, die in entsprechenden Use-Cases in der Praxis zur Anwendung geführt werden konnten.

The goal of this thesis is to describe the Application lifecycle management (ALM), with a focus on two aspects of this system. The aspects are: the application for the administration of requirements JIRA and the application for the administration of the testing system Testlink. The basis for this endeavor was my practical experience with the implementation of the process ALM in the company LMC. Application lifecycle management is an essential part of companies focused on management processes for software development and it can thus improve their features, from the defining stage to the installation in the production sphere. In my thesis I focus on the application JIRA, as a replacement tool for the administration of requirements and the application Testlink, which is software for the administration and test management. The result aims to conclude whether these applications fulfilled the initial representations of the company and the requirements in the ALM framework. An evaluation of the positive and negative aspects during implementation is being carried, with a look at the effective implementation into practice. I shall try to define the general areas where eventual failures can be detected during the implementation process and that should be carried in mind during the process.

Le contexte économique actuel fait naître de nouveaux besoins chez les entreprises. L’élargissement du marché et la multiplication de la concurrence impliquent de nouveaux objectifs pour les industriels et doivent adapter leur mode de fonctionnement et leur organisation pour les atteindre. Les efforts se portent sur la minimisation de la distance existante entre concepteurs et clients. Cet éloignement est souvent à l’origine de mauvaises compréhensions et de dérivations par rapport à la demande client initiale. Désormais, le client est placé au cœur du processus de conception pour mieux intégrer ses exigences et ainsi satisfaire ses besoins. Ces nouvelles pratiques se démocratisent grâce à l’évolution du web vers le web 2.0 facilitant la communication et la formation de réseaux sociaux. Les systèmes de management de l’information actuellement implémentés dans les entreprises présentent des limites. Les systèmes PLM gérant les informations relatives au produit tout au long de son cycle de vie, traitent peu de l’interaction utilisateur/produit qui pourtant s’avère porteuse d’informations stratégiques pour l’amélioration de la conception et l’innovation de produits. En considérant l’interaction entre un utilisateur et un produit dans un contexte donné, il est possible d’identifier les contraintes liées aux usages de cet utilisateur. C’est sur ces informations d’usage que notre recherche s’est orienté afin d’améliorer la compréhension des besoins clients et déceler des idées innovantes de produits. En élargissant la notion d’utilisateur plutôt associé au client, nous souhaitons y inclure également les employés, les revendeurs et détaillants qui sont à leurs tours à un moment donnée du cycle de vie du produit des utilisateurs. Dans cette optique, nous proposons une approche appelée ULM (Usage Lifecycle Management) qui s’inscrit dans une dynamique de management des usages de divers produits, utilisateurs et environnements. Notre travail s’est axé sur la phase de capitalisation de ces usages à travers les processus aval du cycle de vie, utilisation/commercialisation, maintenance et recyclage. Pour cela, nous proposons l’approche ULM au travers d’une plateforme web externalisée qui se situe au carrefour de plusieurs utilisateurs. Cet outil baptisé C 3 pour Conception Consommation Communication s’oriente autour d’un trièdre utilisateur/produit/contexte pour capitaliser et formaliser les informations d’usage d’un produit. C’est en pensant conjointement les usages et les concepts qu’il sera possible d’aboutir à des produits innovants capables de faire la différence sur un marché ultra concurrentiel. / The current economical context implies news needs for companies. Market spread and competitor’s multiplication imply new objectives for companies which must adapt their functioning process and organization to succeed. Efforts focus on minimizing the distance between designers and customers. This distance often originates misunderstandings and deviations related to the initial customer’s demands. The customer is now placed at the core of the design process in order to better integrate his expectations and satisfy his needs. These new practices democratize themselves thanks to the web evolution towards web 2.0, which facilitates communication and triggered the apparition of social networks. Current information management system implement in companies have limitations. Product-Life Management (PLM) systems manage product-related information over its lifetime. They only slightly encompass the user/product interactions, hence missing strategic information for improving products design and innovations. We consider the interactions between a user and a product within a given context and identify the constraints linked to the use of the product. We oriented our research toward this usage information in order to detect the customer’s needs and better initiate product-related innovations. We widen the notion of user to include employees, retailers and suppliers who punctually interact with the product in its lifecycle. To address this issue, we suggest an approach named ULM (Usage Lifecycle Management). This approach involves a new dynamic for managing usage for several product, users and environments. Our work is axed on the usages capitalization phase through downstream lifecycle processes, use/commercialization, maintenance and recycling. We hence concretize our ULM approach trough an outsourced web platform placed as a center point for users. This tool, named C³ for Conception Consumption Communication, is articulated around the user/product/context triangle to capitalize and formalize product usage information. Only through joint reflexion over usages and concepts will it be to reach innovative products able to make a difference in an ultra-competitive market.

Seit einiger Zeit hat die Industrie hier die enge Verzahnung ihrer Güterproduktion mit Dienstleistungen, auch oft als Services oder Lösungen bezeichnet, als strategische Option erkannt. Der Vorteil einer engen Verflechtung von Produkt und Dienstleistung ist, dass insbesondere im Pre- und Aftersales-Bereich neue Wertschöpfungsmöglichkeiten entstehen, die auf dem einzigartigen Know-How und dem Wissen der anbietenden Unternehmen basieren. Zunehmend wird über solche Lösungen sogar der größere Anteil der Wertschöpfung für das Unternehmen erzielt, so dass die Bedeutung solcher Angebote beständig zunimmt. Der vorliegenden Band dokumentiert die Arbeit des Verbundvorhabens „Produkt-Dienstleistung-Lifecycle-Management“, welches von 2011-2014 den Lehrstuhl für Betriebliche Informationssysteme an der Universität Leipzig zusammen mit Unternehmen ATB Arbeit, Technik und Bildung GmbH, CADsys GmbH, Amtech GmbH und SITEC GmbH aus Chemnnitz realisiert und mit Mitteln der Europäischen Union und des Freistaates Sachsen durch das Programm FuE-Projektförderung der SAB finanziert wurde. Erstmalig werden integrierte Konzepte und Werkzeuge für ein Lebenszyklusmanagement in der Verbindung von Produktion und begleitenden Dienstleistungen vorgestellt, die in entsprechenden Use-Cases in der Praxis zur Anwendung geführt werden konnten.:Dienstleistungslebenszyklen in Produktlebenszyklen (Christian Zinke) Review und Bewertung der Eignung von Open-Source-Lösungen als technische Lösung für ein Life-Cycle-Management produktbezogener Dienstleistungen (Christian Zinke und Florian Golemo) Abbildung von Dienstleistungen im Aras Innovator (Christian Zinke) Unterstützung der produktbezogenen Dienstleistung durch die Integration des Service Modeller (Florian Golemo) Kundenintegration und Kollaborationsmöglichkeiten im Aras Innovator (Christian Zinke, Lars-Peter Meyer) Unterstützung von Pre-Sales Dienstleistungen am Beispiel der Erarbeitung eines technischen Lösungsvorschlag (Frieder Swoboda, Egbert Mauersberger, Christian Zinke) Unterstützung von After-Sales Dienstleistungen am Beispiel des Ersatzteilmanagement (Frieder Swoboda, Egbert Mauersberger, Christian Zinke) Evaluation des PDLM Konzepts und des Unterstützungssystems (Christian Zinke)

Managing and orchestrating the behaviour of virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) remains a major challenge due to their heterogeneity and the ever increasing resource demands of the served flows. In this thesis, we propose a novel VNF manager (VNFM) that employs a parameterized actions-based reinforcement learning mechanism to simultaneously decide on the optimal VNF management action (e.g., migration, scaling, termination or rebooting) and the action's corresponding configuration parameters (e.g., migration location or amount of resources needed for scaling ). More precisely, we first propose a novel parameterized-action Markov decision process (PAMDP) model to accurately describe each VNF, instances of its components and their communication as well as the set of permissible management actions by the VNFM and the rewards of realizing these actions. The use of parameterized actions allows us to rigorously represent the functionalities of the VNFM in order perform various Lifecycle management (LCM) operations on the VNFs. Next, we propose a two-stage reinforcement learning (RL) scheme that alternates between learning an action-value function for the discrete LCM actions and updating the actions parameters selection policy. In contrast to existing machine learning schemes, the proposed work uniquely provides a holistic management platform the unifies individual efforts targeting individual LCM functions such as VNF placement and scaling. Performance evaluation results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed VNFM in maintaining the required performance level of the VNF while optimizing its resource configurations.

Product lifecycles are complex heterogeneous systems. Applying control methods to lifecycles requires significant human capital. Additionally, measuring lifecycles relies primarily on domain expertise and estimates. Presented in this dissertation is a way to semantically represent a product lifecycle as a cyber-physical system for enabling the application of control methods to the lifecycle. Control requires a model and no models exist currently that integrate each phase of lifecycles. The contribution is an integration framework that brings all phases and systems of a lifecycle together. First presented is a conceptual framework and technology innovation. Next, linking product lifecycle data dynamical is described and then how that linked data could be certified and traced for trustworthiness. After that, discussion is focused how the trusted linked data could be combined with machine learning to drive applications throughout the product lifecycle. Last, a case study is provided that integrates the framework and technology. Integrating all of this would enable efficient and effective measurements of the lifecycle to support prognostic and diagnostic control of that lifecycle and related decisions. / Ph. D. / The manufacturing sector is on a precipice to disruptive change that will signifcantly alter the way industrial organizations think, communicate, and interact. Industry has been chasing the dream of integrating and linking data across the product lifecycle and enterprises for decades. However, inexpensive and easy to implement technologies to integrate the people, processes, and things across various enterprises are still not available to the entire value stream. Industry needs technologies that use cyber-physical infrastructures efectively and efciently to collect and analyze data and information across an enterprise instead of a single domain of expertise. Meeting key technical needs would save over $100 billion annually in emerging advanced manufacturing sectors in the US. By enabling a systems-thinking approach, signifcant economic opportunities can be achieved through an industrial shift from paper-based processes to a digitally enabled model-based enterprise via the digital thread. The novel contribution of this dissertation is a verifed and validated integration framework, using trusted linked-data, that brings all phases and systems of the product lifecycle together. A technology agnostic approach was pursued for dynamically generating links. A demonstration is presented as a reference implementation using currently available technology. Requirements, models, and policies were explored for enabling product-data trustworthiness. All methods were developed around open, consensus-based standards to increase the likelihood of scalability. The expected outcome of this work is efcient and efective measurements of the lifecycle to support data-driven methods, specifcally related to knowledge building, decision support, requirements management, and control of the entire product lifecycle.

Traditional manufacturing firms today are on the way to extend their product portfolio with services in order to broaden their offering and to strengthen the relation to their customers. New services are being developed, old services are substituted and replaced and existing services adapted, while the amount of services tends to increase in total. As the number of services increases, so does the administrative work and complexity that comes along with services. This thesis aims at investigating how to handle the rising amount of data internally created around services and which service data need to be managed to describe a service. The objective is to find a way that allows Volvo to focus on the development and adaptation of services and not being distracted with work on administration of data around services, but rather focus on value-creating work. Different types of metadata are identified that describe a service along its lifecycle, e.g. versions, lifecycle stages, dependencies to other services, etc. The way is summarized in a framework that illustrates which data are needed and how this information can be managed. Besides the literature study, a benchmarking study is conducted within three other, global operating companies that have made their way from a manufacturer to a service provider or are still on the way to become one. The objective is to analyze their way on handling service data and to compare those to the one of Volvo and use the gathered information to provide a recommendation that suits Volvo’s way of working. The benchmarking study aimed at investigating the current status and future objectives of the firms through interviews with service experts. The results show that there is a great variation among the firms, including Volvo. While the third benchmarking firm has a mature way of dealing with services in their administration, Volvo and the benchmarking firm 2 are at an early stage in the servitization process. However, benchmarking firm 1 has an intermediate state that is strongly supported by an existing ERP system that is capable of registering service data. The Volvo Group acts in a strong competitive market that demands fleet management services, maintenance agreements and repair contracts in addition to the product offering. A lean way of service data management with high efficiency allows Volvo to compete in this market successfully. Services can be developed quicker by reuse of existing modules, a tracking of changes allows users to see the evolution of a particular service and the impact of a change can be estimated with the right system that considers dependencies among services. A solution to improve in the service data management is presented in the developed framework of this thesis. It is one way to account for the growing number of data and services and to simplify the daily work with services with a software-based solution. It can help to approach the growing number of services and to structure them in a daily work environment as well as from a more holistic portfolio management perspective.

The last twenty years has seen a tremendous change in the way companies do business. Much of this change can be attributed to the so-called information revolution. The integrated interaction between Information Technology (IT) and business processes has changed from its initial function of automating clerical tasks (e.g. payroll, inventory) to providing pertinent information for operational, managerial and executive groups within the organisation. In more recent times, IT has enabled some organisations, including those in the construction industry, to transform or re-engineer their business processes in the face of the rapidly changing business environment. As international competition continues to intensify, significant numbers of construction organisations are investing large amounts of resources into IT as they seek to gain competitive advantage. IT is increasingly being implemented for strategic reasons, so as to enable improved efficiency, better control and enhanced productivity of internal processes. The failure of realising expected IT-induced benefits has led to a growing number of senior executives to question the value of IT investments. Thus, questions like the following are typical: Are we getting our money's worth from our IT investment? ; Are we spending too much or too little on IT? ; What IT projects make the best use of our resources? ; How can we improve the return on our IT investments? This Ph.D. research study was inspired by the perceived lack of a structured framework for the selection, implementation and performance evaluation of IT projects in construction. The development of such a generic framework that could capture the IT project lifecycle management process, and the associated guidelines and procedures for its effective implementation, is a young field of research, still struggling to define its place within the large family of academic disciplines. Being a young branch of science, it might be argued that IT in construction lacks a solid methodological foundation. An IT project lifecycle management process is an integrated approach that provides for the continuous identification, selection, implementation, monitoring and performance evaluation of IT projects. This structured process should provide a systematic method for construction organisations to minimise risks while maximising returns on IT investments. To effectively employ IT in construction, the IT project lifecycle management process should have elements of three essential phases: (1) IT project(s) selection; (2) strategic IT implementation and monitoring; and (3) IT performance evaluation. However, each phase should not be viewed as a separate step. Rather, each is conducted as part of a continuous, interdependent management effort. Information gained from one phase is used to support activities in each of the other two phases. With this in mind, this research study aimed to develop an appropriate framework and associated tools for each phase of the IT project lifecycle. The developed three frameworks are detailed individually in the following paragraphs. The developed IT project(s) selection framework utilised information economics theory to encompass the full spectrum of direct and indirect costs, tangible and intangible expected benefits and the intangible risks associated with IT project proposals, considered for funding by the organisation. To incorporate the uncertainty that normally surrounds quantifying costs, benefits and risks, the framework employed a simple but powerful fuzzy logic technique to integrate all the monetary and non-monetary factors into a form that enabled the ranking of proposals. A case study was undertaken with a large international project management and development organisation to demonstrate the framework's applicability. The case study illustrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach for ranking IT project proposals. Once a portfolio of IT projects is selected for funding by the organisation, it needs to be strategically implemented and monitored over its lifecycle. A strategic IT implementation and monitoring framework was developed to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of this phase. The framework is premised on a hybrid analysis utilising the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and SWOT analysis. A case study was undertaken to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed framework in the strategic implementation and monitoring of a Project Management Information System (PMIS) by a large Australian construction-contracting organisation. The framework application proved to be successful in helping the organisation to develop appropriate strategies for the effective and efficient implementation of the PMIS. An IT performance evaluation framework and method was then developed for the final phase of the lifecycle. This framework was the primary focus of this Ph.D. research study and was structured using the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) principles adapted to the specific requirements of the construction industry. The framework was structured using a hierarchy of IT performance perspectives, indicators and measures. Five definable perspectives were conceptually developed through analysis and synthesis of the 'IT business value' evaluation literature. These are: operational, benefits, technology/system, strategic competitiveness and user orientation. Indicators and measures were extracted from the mainstream IT literature and construction management literature, as well as the emerging literature on information economics. The preliminary list of indicators was initially screened through consultation with construction professionals and conceptual cause-and-effect mapping. The screened list of project-tier indicators was further refined through questionnaire dissemination. The questionnaire was sent to 322 construction project participants from large construction-contracting and project management organisations located within Australia. The five framework perspectives were statistically validated through the principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation. Each perspective and indicator's relative weight was numerically established using the questionnaire survey results as input to the recently developed Performance Measurement Process Framework (PMPF). The reason that the performance measures were not justified through a quantitative analysis was due to their dynamic nature. Most performance measures change, and will continue to change, with new technology. The developed perspectives, indicators and measures were all compiled into a generic 'Construct IT' BSC that can serve as a template for application at other decision-making tiers of a construction organisation. The problem of combining performance measures, with varying metrics, into commensurable units (utiles) was achieved by applying utility theory. Finally, the developed 'Construct IT' BSC was utilised for a project-tier survey to test the interrelationship between framework indicators and perspectives. Using information collected from 82 project professionals, from large construction-contracting and project management organisations, correlation and independent sample t-tests (one-tailed) provided support for the 'Construct IT' BSC. Specifically, findings suggest that the 'Construct IT' BSC can be used as a tool for monitoring the IT-induced value creation process. In addition, it appears that the proposed 'Construct IT' BSC framework and associated performance evaluation method is both flexible in design and can be modified to suit the needs of individual organisations. These characteristics make the framework continuously relevant to the dynamic nature of IT projects. In summary, the proposed IT project lifecycle management process, and its associated frameworks, provides a holistic view of IT implementation in construction and offers significant contributions to current body of knowledge on IT in construction.

To satisfy new market requirements, manufacturing industry has shifted from mass production that takes advantage of the scale of production, to quality management that optimizes the internal enterprise functions, to e-manufacturing era that leverage intellectual capital via collaborative innovation. In the same time, the product itself is becoming the most important asset for sustainable business success. Consequently, the effectiveness, efficiency and innovation for the development of the product across the whole product lifecycle are becoming key business factors for manufacturing enterprise to obtain competitive advantages for survival. To tackle such challenges, a new business model called collaborative product services in virtual enterprise is proposed in this paper. The architecture of this new model is developed based on the framework and the application of web service and process management for collaboration product service in virtual enterprise. Indeed, it is hoped that this architecture will lay the foundation for further research and development of effective product lifecycle management in virtually collaborative enterprise environment. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

A new product progresses through a sequence of stages from its introduction in the market and its profitability, this sequence is known as the ¡§product life cycle (PLC).¡¨ However, before a product enter the market during the conceive phase, there are three major elements: product data conception, product data collaboration, and product data management. These elements allow a company to track product development through portfolio management and to maintain sales product configuration and market documentation through centralize database. The essence of product lifecycle management (PLM) helps a company increase product revenues through reduced design phase period and prototyping costs due to changes. Currently, the PLM uses a process-oriented model where its strategies are inefficient due to lack of comprehensive consideration and fast rate of change in market needs. As a result, resources are wasted and product competitiveness is affected when the entire process is altered. Thus, this research presents the architecture-oriented product lifecycle management model (AOPLMM) as a solution to deficiencies of the process-oriented model. The goal of AOPLMM is to establish product design development based on multi-needs of the market. Overall, AOPLMM is able to integrate design organization (such as requirement specification, intellectual property right, and green environmental design) and information system for product development knowledge in defining responsibilities of each division and collaboration among them. AOPLMM includes six fundamental diagrams: the ¡§architecture hierarchy diagram,¡¨ the ¡§framework diagram,¡¨ the ¡§component operation diagram,¡¨ the ¡§component connection diagram, the ¡§structure-behavior coalescence diagram,¡¨ and the ¡§interaction flow diagram.¡¨ To construct an efficient model through information management system has several advantages such as flexibility in product design, immediate response to market needs, simplification of product development, decline in enterprise cost, and increase in competitiveness. Therefore, an architecture-oriented model is the clear choice for product lifecycle management.