Towards a Unified Product and Project Lifecycle Model (PPLM) for Systems Engineering

Developing and sustaining complex systems requires collaboration of multidisciplinary teams, coordination of processes, methods and tools, allocation of resources and utilization of adequate facilities within enterprises. The system engineering management comprises three intertwined domains: the product, the project and the enterprise. Despite the obvious links between them, each is carried out using its distinct ontology and toolset. This conceptual separation hinders effective handling of the project and product lifecycle activities within the enterprise. Testing activities of complex products are focused on verifying the performance of increasingly large modules, from software and hardware components, through subassemblies to the entire operational system. What needs to be developed, tested, and delivered is determined by the product requirements, its functions, architecture, components, and their interactions. When each component should and can be developed and tested is determined by the project plan, which is dynamically re-estimated, re-evaluated, and re-planned depending on different parameters such as the project actual status compared with the plan, recourses availability, risks, technological breakthroughs or other impacting issues. Whether carrying out the development mission is feasible is determined by the responsible enterprise, its size, structure, management criteria, other projects running in parallel, commitments, and many other aspects. This paper introduces a unified project-product lifecycle management framework that attempts to address the problems cause by separating the product from the project that is supposed to deliver it within the executing enterprise.