Product lifecycle management and digital manufacturing technologies in the era of cloud computing

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems play an increasingly important role in the area of integrating information pertaining to a series of product, process and resource development and evolution phases. With the advent of the cloud computing paradigm and the evolvement of a number of enabling technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), a series of new challenges and opportunities have arisen. It is not only the amount of data that is and will be available but also the number and diversity of advanced digital manufacturing technologies and systems that make the management and integration of all relevant information and processes a very complex task. In this paper, these challenges are outlined and reviewed in the context of the novel technological developments that have started to emerge. At the same time, the potential application areas as well as the business opportunities, stemming from the deployment of more sophisticated PLM systems, are discussed.