PLM-Centered Support of Active Virtual Customer Integration into the Product Creation Process

Abstract

Within the last decades the position of customers has changed from a passive recipient to an active co-designer in the value creation. Successful innovators use competence within an extended network which particularly includes the competence of customers. Therefore the ability to allow information about customers and their needs to flow into the process of product creation is decisive. But todays methods and IT-Tools often do not achieve the desired results in innovation projects. In order to improve the active virtual customer integration into the process of product creation; this paper presents a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)-centered research environment with a ubiquitous mobile frontend. A process outline for the provision of product descriptive data from a PLM system to a mobile device and the information return, back into the product creation process is included.