REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

www.mod.gov.rs

MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

Material Resources Sector

Defensive Technologies Department

Military Technical Institute

www.vti.mod.gov.rs

Systematic Approach to Maturity Assessment of Serbian Companies in Implementation of Product Lifecycle Management

zoran vasić

Military Technical Institute, Belgrade, e-mail: zoran.vasic@vti.vs.rs

Abstract: A holistic approach to managing product related information along products’ lifecycle from product design phase to its disposal phase challenged by all the problems that exist today in global market environment is Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). Presented research was made on the basis of general industrial plan and program that perceived the importance and benefits which could be gained by implementation of PLM. The paper is a part of practical research activities and on-going projects of implementation of PLM into the Serbian defence industry. The survey presented in this paper was made by structured questionnaire accomplished for forty companies which are at different stages of adopting or introducing of PLM. The collected results of the survey were analyzed and presented in this paper. Purpose of the presented empirical researches is to provide a practical way to assess a company maturity and its readiness for PLM introduction and implementation. The aim of this paper is to elaborate the challenge of PLM introduction and implementation into organization and how it can be improved with systematically assessment of organization’s maturity.

Keywords: product lifecycle management (PLM), Strategic Alignment Maturity Model, questionnaire, business/IT alignment, maturity level, business process