Title: A holonic metamodel for product traceability in Product Lifecycle Management

Authors: Sergio Terzi, Herve Panetto, Gerard Morel, Marco Garetti

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Bergamo, Viale Marconi 5, 24044 Dalmine (BG), Italy. ' Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy, CRAN UMR 7039, Nancy-University, CNRS, BP239, F54506, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France. ' Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy, CRAN UMR 7039, Nancy-University, CNRS, BP239, F54506, Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy, France. ' Politecnico di Milano, Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy

Abstract: Product and production management have become complex processes, where more problems are overlapping each other, while the product development might ever take more into account the improved customers| tastes and requests in a shorter time-to-market. The Product Lifecycle and its related Management (PLM) are becoming unavoidable key aspects, creating such a |product centric| problem. The integrated management of all the information regarding the product is one of the related questions. One of the main issues concerning with the product management in a wider perspective, deals with the traceability of the product itself. The present paper aims at discussing the question of PLM as a question of product traceability. The product traceability problem concerns with the management of the identification of a product along its lifecycle. The paper aims at discussing an innovative approach to product traceability, based on a holonic definition of the product and its lifecycle. The paper presents a reference metamodel where a |product holon| is defined – in a whole lifecycle – as a single element, able to merge product|s physical part with product information needed for tracing its life.

Keywords: holonic metamodelling; product traceability; product lifecycle management; PLM; information management; information integration; product holon.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2007.016292

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2007 Vol.2 No.3, pp.253 - 289

Published online: 15 Dec 2007 *

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