Product lifecycle management (PLM) has become more important in companies providing technologies and methodologies to manage data, information, and knowledge along the whole product lifecycle. In recent years, several authors have argued about PLM using a managerial or a technological view. The paper analyses these studies and integrates different author's points of view using focus groups, blogs, and face-to-face meetings in a university community of practice. Three sets of features (i.e., managerial, technological, and collaborative ones) have been used to review the existing definitions shared between academic and industrial ones and to propose an extended PLM definition describing its key concepts. The paper is a useful reference for managers and academics who want to have a clear and critical understanding of PLM using a unique source to collect lines of evidence on several PLM definitions, features, and concepts. 1. Introduction Continuous innovation, global collaboration, risk management in complex projects, and rapid technological changes are challenges that compel large and small enterprises to react by focusing on core competence, collaborating with partners in product design, engineering and production, or shifting part of the activities in low labor cost countries. Producing complex products in this scenario requires that information about product and process is accessible to the several actors in the value network such as partners, suppliers, and customers. The tendency is to use a PLM strategy to integrate people, processes, business systems, and information in order to manage the product development [1] and support its lifecycle. PLM means product lifecycle management, and its value is increasing, especially for manufacturing, high technology, and service industries [2]. In fact, today PLM is widely recognized as a business necessity for companies to become more innovative in order to meet current challenges such as product customization and traceability, growing competition, shorter product development and delivery times, globalization, tighter regulations, and legislation. Being an innovative business, it does not simply mean creating innovative products, but it also means improving the processes a company uses to realize its products and how it supports them using innovative approaches for a complete product lifecycle [3]. In fact, the aim of PLM is to trace and manage all the activities and flows of data and information during the product development process and also during the actions of maintenance and support in order to identify a
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