Product lifecycle management (PLM) methodology for product tracking based on radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology

Abstract

Existing product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions today do not support product tracking. These solutions only support data exchange in company about products. Recent investigations indicate growing need to trace and manage data on products even when they leave the original production system, covering other product lifecycle stages such as exploitation, servicing, EoL (End of Life) warehousing, disassembly, recycling, and re-assembly. This paper describes radio-frequency identification (RFID)-based model, as part of a PLM solution, which allows updating of all critical product management information pertaining to changes in product status during its lifetime. The developed model allows application of RFID technology through dedicated software and hardware solution and software tools for decision making based on product information obtained by continuous tracing and updating, from the moment of delivery to end-user, to the moment of its life end. The model was verified on a circulation pump case study. The results gained in this study have shown that the proposed RFID-based PLM model is sufficiently generalized and with some adjustments could be used for various products. © 2011 Academic Journals.