A framework for PLM integration in virtual enterprise ecosystem

To satisfy rapidly changing demands of customers, manufacturing industry has shifted from mass production, which takes the advantage of the scale of production, to concurrent engineering, which optimizes internal enterprise processes, and virtual enterprise, which leverages intellectual capital via collaborative innovation. In such a virtual enterprise environment, companies need to closely collaborate with customers, manufacturers, and suppliers in a real time manner so as to provide customers with tailored products faster, better, and cheaper. To address such a need, a framework for the integration of product lifecycle management with other enterprise systems is developed in this paper. The corresponding information infrastructure is constructed to support the implementation of such a framework. An application scenario is demonstrated to show the efficiency of the developed framework. Indeed, it is hoped that the development of such a framework for the integration of product lifecycle management in virtual enterprise ecosystem will lay the frontier basis for the further research of virtual enterprise ecosystem to pursue the most advanced competitiveness.