The Importance of Business Processes in PLM

This chapter provides an introduction to business processes in the PLM environment. It describes the purpose, role and importance of processes across the product lifecycle. Processes are important. A process is an activity. It’s something a company does. The company has a choice. It can put in place good processes and do the right things. Or it can do things badly. There’s a lot of activity in a company as a product is developed, produced and supported. There are dozens of processes including the product development process, the product portfolio management process, the change process and the obsolescence process. Many people work in the processes, creating, reviewing, investigating, correcting and communicating. And, all the time, existing product data is being used in processes, and new product data is being created and used. This chapter describes the characteristics of processes that impact the management of products. Process mapping and modelling is introduced.