Business Agility and Flexibility in Enterprise Service-based Information Systems: Application to PLM Systems
Abstract
Industrial companies collaborating to develop new products need to implement the effective management of their product design processes (PDPs) and product information. PDPs are known for their changing, emergent and non-deterministic characteristics due to the business environment within which they are executed. Unfortunately, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, which are dedicated to support product design activities, are not as efficient as might be expected. PLM systems are based on workflow technology, which does not support PDP's agility. Process support flexibility requirements, are necessary in order to facilitate coupling with the business reality. Furthermore, systems based on Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) have the inherent ability to evolve. We believe that SOA can promote the support of flexible PDPs. The aim of the work presented in this chapter is to propose an alternative approach for flexible product design process support within PLM systems, by making profiles from SOA. The objective is to specify, design and implement PDPs in a very flexible manner, in order to ensure that business changes can be rapidly made in PLM solutions. A generic services identification approach is proposed for architecting agile process-centered service-based information systems.