Int J Adv Manuf Technol
DOI 10.1007/s00170-015-7151-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Big Data in product lifecycle management
Jingran Li 1 & Fei Tao 2 & Ying Cheng 2 & Liangjin Zhao 3
Received: 26 November 2014 / Accepted: 12 April 2015
# Springer-Verlag London 2015
Abstract Recently, “Big Data” has attracted not only re-
searchers’ but also manufacturers’ attention along with the
development of information technology. In this paper, the
concept, characteristics, and applications of “Big Data” are
briefly introduced first. Then, the various data involved in
the three main phases of product lifecycle management
(PLM) (i.e., beginning of life, middle of life, and end of life)
are concluded and analyzed. But what is the relationship be-
tween these PLM data and the term “Big Data”? Whether the
“Big Data” concept and techniques can be employed in
manufacturing to enhance the intelligence and efficiency of
design, production, and service process, and what are the po-
tential applications? Therefore, in order to answer these ques-
tions, the existing applications of “Big Data” in PLM are
summarized, and the potential applications of “Big Data”
techniques in PLM are investigated and pointed out.
Keywords Big Data . Manufacturing . Product lifecycle
management . Potential application
1 Introduction
A large amount of digital data can be generated by people
linked with social networks like Twitter, Google, Verizon,
* Fei Tao
ftao@buaa.edu.cn
1
School of Astronautics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
2
School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang
University, Beijing 100191, China
3
School of Advanced Engineering, Beihang University,
Beijing 100191, China
23andMe, Facebook, and Wikipedia [1]. For example,
Facebook processed more than 500 TB of information every
day in 2012. Apart from the social network area, online busi-
ness has also witnessed a stunning growth in the last few years
such as Tmall (Alibaba), which made over 300 billion RMB
in sales on November 11, 2013, the “Bachelor Day” celebrat-
ed by young single Chinese. Moreover, in the areas of science
researches like biology, the amount of data is increasing with
the exponential growth speed [2]. While these numbers seem
incredible, growing volumes of data are the inevitable devel-
opment trends in various areas. On the other hand, researches
related to those growing data have been conducted in recent
years, like data mining and knowledge management [3–7].
However, the utilization of “Big Data” in product lifecycle
management (PLM) significantly lags behind other areas, es-
pecially for electronic commerce. Even worse, it is common
that some manufacturers either do not store data or know little
about how to use these data. This situation makes the different
links in the manufacturing chain to not be connected efficient-
ly and data will not be generated, transmitted, and stored suc-
cessfully. Does it mean that manufacturing will miss “Big
Data” since manufacturing enterprises are faced with such a
dilemma? As clearly stated in the technical report from
McKinsey Global Institute [8], in the PLM area, the benefits
of “Big Data” techniques will permeate the entire manufactur-
ing value chain, mainly in research and development, supply
chain management, manufacturing, service, and other steps,
which makes manufacturing to reduce the development cycle,
optimizing the assembly process, increasing yields, and meet
customer needs. In other words, the future of “Big Data” in
PLM is promising.
“Big Data,” a new product of data engineering in the infor-
mation explosion age, has caught countless people’s eyes both
in academic and industrial community recently. There have
been more than 1000 research papers concerned about “Big

Data” since 2000. Although the concept of “Big Data” in
PLM is quite a new idea, a number of papers related to knowl-
edge management and data mining in manufacturing or PLM
have been published in recent years. The following three as-
pects are summarized as the existing applications of “Big Da-
ta” in PLM.
(1) Data management and scheduling based on “Big Data.”
Once data are obtained, the issue about how to manage
them efficiently must be considered. “Big Data” manage-
ment is quite a concern for scientists, and some research
results have been achieved. For example, vertical ex-
change of information through all levels of the factory
is validated in an integrative information model [1] and
new solutions based on “Big Data” have been proposed
to build a better data warehouse for more data, more
speed, and more users [9]. Besides, batch task scheduling
is facilitated by the dynamic, real-time characteristics of
“Big Data” [10]. Moreover, in the area of meta-schedul-
ing, efficient and cost effective scheduling algorithms are
presented to solve the “Big Data” problems [11].
(2) Supply chain management (SCM) based on “Big Data.”
Different from the traditional concept of logistics, SCM
indicates the networks of companies which collaborate
together. Specific techniques like social media and real-
time simulation gaming have been used to strengthen the
supply chain collaboration [12] which calls for the appli-
cation of “Big Data” since these techniques must gener-
ate a large volume of data. Besides, “Big Data” has en-
abled predictive analytics in a Maker Movement Supply
Chain [13] and the combination between “Big Data” and
advanced manufacturing techniques has remodeled sup-
ply chains into demand chains which may lead to fewer
wastes and fast customer response [14].
(3) Application of “Big Data” in mass customization (MC).
MC has been deemed as a competitive method which
provides every customer with personalized products
through high process flexibility and integration [15].
“Big Data” analytics is regarded as one of the three major
technological enablers for mass customization, which
has pushed the development of the Third Industrial Rev-
olution [16, 17]. To develop the MC system, the involve-
ment of advanced manufacturing techniques (AMTs) is
indispensable and fundamental [18]. More specifically,
to some extent, it is the integration of a series of infor-
mation and process flexibility techniques that makes the
MC concept arise [15]. Not only should manufacturers
collect real-time online customization data of every con-
sumer, but also they need to establish cooperative allo-
cation of all resources through the network.
Although the existing research works about “Big Data” in
PLM have played important roles in improving PLM, they are
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
still far from enough because many promising “Big Data”
applications remained undeveloped yet. In fact, there is a
strong need for “Big Data” in nowadays PLM to realize the
aim of TQCSEFK (i.e., fastest Time-to-market, highest Qual-
ity, lowest Cost, best Service, cleanest Environment, greatest
Flexibility, and high Knowledge). Thus [19], academic re-
searches about “Big Data” in PLM are extremely valuable
and pressing.
In addition, the existing works about “Big Data” related to
PLM mentioned above is primarily concerned with only one
part of PLM or a product, which have not explored from the
viewpoint of the whole lifecycle of product and manufactur-
ing. What is more, no specific and detailed application of “Big
Data” has been figured out in existing works. For example, it
is better to divide the process of MC into several steps and
researching what “Big Data” can be utilized in the different
steps, respectively.
Therefore, to complete the lack of academic studies of “Big
Data” in PLM, it is necessary to propose a comprehensive and
systematic framework of the detailed applications of “Big Da-
ta” in PLM. In this framework, PLM is divided into three parts
and the subdivisions continue to be separated into more spe-
cific steps accordingly. Actually, not all of the divided steps
are suitable for “Big Data” employment which leaves a heavy
task to distinguish the potential ones from the improper ones.
Aiming at each potential one, the existing and promising ap-
plications of “Big Data” are introduced and analyzed thor-
oughly. Thus, the purpose of this paper is achieved which is
to provide a roadmap to direct and guide the related research
works in the future.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly de-
scribes the concept, characteristics, and applications of “Big
Data.” In order to enable the applications of “Big Data” in
PLM, various data involved in the three main phases of
PLM are summarized and analyzed in Section 3. A framework
of the potential applications of “Big Data” in PLM is illustrat-
ed in Section 4, as well as the detailed explanations for those
applications. The advantages and challenges for applying
“Big Data” in PLM are analyzed respectively in Section 5
and Section 6. At the end of the paper, Section 7 concludes
the whole manuscript and points out the future works.
2 Big Data
2.1 Concept of “Big Data” and its brief history
2.1.1 Concept of “Big Data”
The concept of “Big Data” has not been precisely defined as
there is lots of buzz around it [20]. It has been declared as a
new kind of economic asset, like currency or gold [21], which
is strongly competitive in economics. The creator of the “Day
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
in the Life” photography series even suggests that “Big Data”
is an intelligent tool to combat poverty, crime, and pollution
[21].
A convincing definition of “Big Data” focuses not only on
the size of data in storage but also on other important attributes
of “Big Data,” like data variety and data velocity [22]. For
example, the definition from Wikipedia illustrates that “Big
Data” is a term for any collection of large and complex data
sets which are difficult to be analyzed by traditional data pro-
cessing methods. In a more straight definition, “Big Data” just
means data that it is too big, too fast, or too hard for existing
tools to process [20].
2.1.2 Brief history of “Big Data”
The story of how data became big started many years before
the current fervent concern on “Big Data.” Seventy years ago,
the first attempt to quantify the growth rate in the volume of
data was made, known as the “information explosion” [23].
Since then, papers related to information collecting [24], stor-
age [25], and processing [26] have greatly contributed to the
boom of “Big Data.”
The first article in the ACM digital library to use the term
“Big Data” is “Application controlled demand paging for out
of core visualization” [27] in the Proceedings of the IEEE 8th
conference on Visualization in 1997. From then on, the con-
cept of “Big Data” has gradually become accepted by scien-
tists and researchers.
In 1989, Howard D, then a Gartner Group analyst, pro-
posed “business intelligence” as “concepts and methods to
improve business decision making by using fact-based sup-
port systems” [28]. Business Intelligence and Analytics
(BI&A) has emerged as an important area of study for both
practitioners and researchers [29] related to data analytics
problems. In 2011, the paper entitled “Big Data: The next
frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity” [8] by
McKinsey Global Institute truly brought “Big Data” before
public eyes. At the same year, Science magazine published a
special online collection: Dealing with Data, which discussed
issues of “Big Data” in scientific research.
The academic milestones [8, 27, 30–35] in the brief history
of “Big Data” since 1997 are illustrated in Fig. 1, which
Fig. 1 Brief history of Big Data
generally introduces what research contributions have been
done on “Big Data.”
2.2 Characteristics of “Big Data”
Properties of “Big Data” have been concluded as “5Vs theo-
ry” and the most famous 3Vs are volume, variety, and veloc-
ity, which were introduced by Gartner analyst Laney D in a
2001 META Group research publication [31].
& Volume refers to the large amount of data. The data stor-
age unit in “Big Data” has reached to TB and PB.
& Variety refers to the great number of types of data includ-
ing weblog, music, video, picture, geographical position,
etc.
& Velocity refers to the high speed of data process, which is
the most distinct feature from the traditional database.
Nowadays, the other 2Vs have been added to the model as
follows.
& Variability refers to the expansion in the range of values of
data. Because it can cover the full range of human (and
machine) experience, “Big Data” always shows more var-
iance than traditional datasets.
& Value refers to the low density and the high overall value
of “Big Data.” Among the large quantity of data, only a
quite small part of information is useful and there is a need
to evaluate them. Through data analytic methods, valued
information can always be obtained and used in business
operation.
According to the 5Vs model, not only the sheer amount of
data but also other characteristics of “Big Data” can bring
challenges to “Big Data” management, where the data set is
too large, data values change too fast, and it does not follow
the rules of conventional database management and systems
[36]. With the need to ensure the real-time or near real-time
responses for huge amount of data in seconds, advanced data
analytics methods should be proposed to handle the 5Vs of
“Big Data.”
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

2.3 Application of “Big Data” [39]. In order to create an effective cost management policy
for EC environment, a complex and extensible metric for data
Although the concept of “Big Data” is extremely hot nowa- enquiry [40] is proposed and Hadoop is applied in EC logistic
days, some people have pointed out that “Big Data” exists (ECL Hadoop) to decrease the cost of I/O in Map Reduce
only on paper, and it has been deemed as a theoretical percep- [41].
tion which cannot be put into practical applications.
However, countless examples have illustrated that the
2.3.2 Financial trading
viewpoint above is wrong and “Big Data” truly has brought
momentous changes for our daily life. For example, the suc-
“Big Data” is especially important for financial service com-
cesses of Wal-Mart and Amazon have relied a lot on “Big
panies because the biggest task for them is making use of
Data.” Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the USA, has a cus-
information to obtain as many profits as possible. For exam-
tomer database that contains around 43 terabytes of data,
ple, by analyzing changes in search terms related to finance in
which is larger than the database used by the Internal Revenue
Google query and Wikipedia pages, stock market moves can
Services for collecting income taxes [37]. “Big Data” makes it
be predicted from the vast new data [42, 43]. It has been
available to store and analyze the large volume of data about
suggested that online data may help decision makers to obtain
customers which provides the opportunity to gain competitive
new insight into early information gathering. Besides, when
advantages [38].
building the internet finance trading platform, there are also
The major applications of “Big Data” in various aspects are
the needs for “Big Data” processing methods, like providing
illustrated in Fig. 2. Some of them are summarized as follows.
subscribers an operative link with financial markets by a
multi-purpose data processing system [44]. Not only can the
system provide supports for necessary financial transactions
2.3.1 Electronic commerce
or services, but it also may build a remote trading platform to
kinds of pre-select traders.
Electronic commerce (EC) is a form of trading which empha-
sizes online communication between customers and firms.
Here comes “Big Data” to help build relational markets as 2.3.3 Government
well as increasing customers’ abilities to find appropriate in-
formation on the Web. According to Liu and Arnett’s survey The trend of “Big Data” in government is facilitated by im-
of webmasters from Fortune 1000 companies, an analysis of proved access to information. In 2009, Washington started
data is concluded to be essential for Web site success in EC Data.gov [45], a Web site that provides the public with a

Fig. 2 Major applications of Big Data

Int J Adv Manuf Technol
wealth of government data, which increases government cred-
ibility to a great degree. Apart from this, with the large volume
of data from thousands of sensors and satellite images, gov-
ernment can forecast in advance and take action promptly to
minimize property damages and reduce casualties brought by
natural disaster [35]. Moreover, with the increasing needs to
build smart city, various kinds of data for optimizing the op-
eration of the whole city are required [45]. The stages of every
car, building, park, street, and even person are monitored in
real time by countless sensors dispersed around the whole city,
which leaves a large quantity of data for decision makers to
achieve the optimal scheduling solution.
2.3.4 Health care
Health is particularly well suited to benefit from “Big
Data” because a huge variety of health data are being
collected quickly [46]. Online diagnosis repository is a
successful application of “Big Data” in health care when
the health data of patients have almost been stored, re-
trieved, managed, and shared in electronic format. Google
Health and Microsoft HealthVault [47] have made it pos-
sible for patients to consult and even receive treatment
online by the virtue of public clinical history. What is
more, “Big Data” can also help the pharmaceutical indus-
try to decrease variability in healthcare quality and esca-
lating healthcare effectivity by mining data to see what
treatments are most effective for particular conditions
[48].
2.3.5 Telecommunication
Telecommunication companies generate a tremendous
amount of data, which include call detail data, network
data, and customer data. As many communication chan-
nels are now available, in order to grow new business
and protect against churn, there is no doubt that tele-
communication companies have to get well prepared for
“Big Data.” Data Mining has been applied to uncover
useful information and identify telecommunication fraud
[49]. Besides, preprocessing of large input data sets has
been confirmed to increase the plausibility and accuracy
of the Churn forecasts [50].
From what has been mentioned above, it is apparent
that “Big Data” can truly make big differences on var-
ious areas. However, according to survey, it is noticed
that in the field of manufacturing, the use of “Big Data”
has not caught the researchers’ and manufacturers’ eyes
yet. Thus, it is necessary to study systematically and
thoroughly about the existing and potential applications
of “Big Data” in PLM.
3 Data in PLM
3.1 Brief introduction to PLM
PLM emerged in the early twenty-first century to manage the
knowledge intensive process consisting mainly of market
analysis, product design and process development, product
manufacturing, product distribution, product in use, post-sale
service, and product recycling. As its name implies, PLM
enables companies to manage their products across their
lifecycles [51].
PLM is of great significance as it can improve the devel-
opment of new products and reduce manufacturing costs by
controlling the products through their lifecycle.
A product’s lifecycle always includes design, production,
logistics, utility, maintenance, and recycle. In the design
phase, an idea in designer’s head is transferred into a detailed
description. Subsequently, a product in its final shape is ob-
tained in the production phase. Then, the product is stored in
warehouse and then transported to customer in the logistics
phase. In the phase of utility, customer uses the product while
manufacturer provides remote service. If something goes
wrong, the product enters into the maintenance phase, and if
it can no longer be used, it comes to the end of its life like
recycle or disposal.
These above phases can be divided into three periods: be-
ginning of life (BOL), middle of life (MOL), and end of life
(EOL) [51]. BOL is the period in which product concept is
generated, designed, and subsequently physically realized.
MOL is the period when products are distributed, used, and
maintained by customers or engineers. EOL is the period
when EOL products are recycled by manufacturers or dis-
posed by customers [52]. In the following section, the data
involved in these three phases are summarized and investigat-
ed in detail.
3.2 Data in BOL, MOL, and EOL
To achieve good performance in PLM, figuring out what kind
of data are involved in PLM is a requisite task before propos-
ing advisable advanced analytics methods. It helps “Big Data”
techniques solve product-related problems or make certain
decisions based on the tremendous amount of data at different
levels.
Tables 1, 2, and 3 individually show various kinds of input
and output data in BOL, MOL, and EOL periods.
3.2.1 BOL
Although lots of preparations have to be done before produc-
tion, when we focus on the manufacturing and products, the
works have been simplified to some extent which only leave
the most essential steps: marketing analysis and product
 Int J Adv Manuf Technol

Table 1 Data in BOL

Input data Output data

Category Main data Category Main data

Customers’ demands
Maintenance and failure
information
Cooperative corporation
information
Product function, configuration,
packaging, quality, cost, brand,
and other related expectation
Main breakdown problems,
frequency of maintenance,
failure rate, critical component
list, root causes, etc. [50]
Alternative supplier information,
alternative outsourcing company
information, etc.
Design Materials list, suppliers list, electronic drawings,
specifications computer programming codes, configuration
parameters, location parameters, tolerance
parameters, intensity of materials, etc.
Production Assemble instruction, production specifications,
information production history data, production plan,
inventory status, etc.

design. When it comes to the data in these two steps, the
general trend is from multiform to relatively single form.
At the step of marketing analysis, the most important task is
meeting customers’ demands, which may exist in kinds of
forms. The variety of data forms include comments on blogs,
the videos they upload on the Internet, the Web sites they
mark, and their related purchasing behaviors. Besides these
unspecific demands, the information from MOL and EOL like
customers’ complaints and sales performance of similar prod-
ucts can also make a big difference in achieving the purpose of
marketing analysis-providing goals for product design.
At the step of product design, the data involved can be
traced from the description of needs to the specific product
function description and finally to the detailed design specifi-
cations like drawings of the product configurations, the accu-
rate programming codes for the automated manufacturing
equipment, and all kinds of parameters. Moreover, it is neces-
sary to make use of the maintenance and failure information to
modify and improve product design constantly. Based on the
history information of breakdowns and root causes, current
products can be designed more efficiently and reliably.
The data during production are more ever-changing as the
manufacturing processes are always dynamic which continu-
ously produce real-time data. Numerous sensors are installed
in the work shop to monitor the parameters of environment,
equipment, and the products themselves. While some data
might be stable, others are changing dramatically along with
the flow of product manufacturing.
The data related to products are always in the biggest vol-
umes and highest rates of change. When a product is being
produced, to ensure the product quality is up to standard,
especially in Precision Manufacturing, all design demands
should be obeyed strictly like size tolerance, geometric toler-
ance, and surface roughness. Thus, configuration parameters
like thickness and length, location parameters like coordinate,
tolerance parameters like concentricity, and even the intensity
of material should be monitored at any time to decrease the
risk of inferior quality product. In conclusion, in this phase,
the data from the stage of product design will be regarded as
the standards of product production that the data from both the
monitoring and the testing of products are served to reach the
standards.

Table 2 Data in MOL

Input data Output data

Category Main data Category Main data

User manual Product function introduction, installation Product status Degree of quality of each component,
guide, use condition, precautions, etc. information performance definition, etc.
Production Assemble instruction, production Usage environment Usage condition (e.g., average humidity,
information specifications, production history data, information internal/external temperature), user mission
production plan, inventory status, etc. profile, usage time, etc.
Maintenance Spare part ID list, price of spare part, Maintenance Maintenance engineers, tools, dates, places,
supporting maintenance/service instructions, plan costs, failure causes, etc.
information etc. [50]
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Table 3 Data in EOL
Input data
Category Main data
Maintenance history Components’ IDs in problem, installed
information date, maintenance engineers’ IDs,
list of replaced parts, aging statistics
after substitution, maintenance cost, etc.
Product status Degree of quality of each component,
information performance definition, etc.
Usage environment Usage condition (e.g., average humidity,
information internal/external temperature),
user mission profile, usage time, etc.
When it comes to equipment, things are a little different as
various kinds of equipment might be applied to produce only
one kind of product. And as the wear of equipment is a long-
term process, prediction is much more involved in it than
monitoring or testing. However, it does not mean that moni-
toring is no longer important in this step. As the data are still
from sensors on equipment, estimating equipment wear just
puts an emphasis on advanced analytics methods to handle
these data for prediction use.
3.2.2 MOL
In the middle of PLM, as products have existed in its final
form, issues concerned with service have become more sig-
nificant and needed to be paid great attention [53]. After
servitization of manufacturing was devoted to advanced
manufacturing system which established many manufacturing
service systems like cloud manufacturing (CMfg) service sys-
tem, a lot of key techniques have been studied, including
supply chain management, resource and service optimal allo-
cation and scheduling, and service workflow management
[54–56].
In the phase of logistics, efficient decision strategies are
eagerly needed to solve complex issues no matter in ware-
house management or transportation optimization since the
trend of globalization of logistics has exceedingly increased
the volume of data. The input data of this phase are order
information, and what manufacturers need are optimal ar-
rangements. How to transform order information into intelli-
gent arrangements with the global view is the most crucial task
here.
In the utility phase, based on the information from user
manual, customer can operate product normally. In the pro-
cess, product status information will be generated and trans-
mitted back to manufacturer, which makes it possible for man-
ufacturer to get involved in the utility phase. Moreover, the
usage environment information will also be monitored and
recorded to provide instructions for maintenance phase.
Output data
Category Main data
Recycling part Reuse part or component, remanufacturing
information information, quality of remanufacturing
part or component, etc.
EOL product status Product/part/component lifetime, recycling/
information reuse rate of each component or part, etc.
Dismantling Ease to disassemble, reuse or recycling
information value, disassembly cost, remanufacturing
cost, disposal cost, etc.
In current maintenance models, posterior or breakdown
maintenance is outdated and of low efficiency. By combining
maintenance supporting information with product status infor-
mation, a great deal of malfunctions can be predicted and
prevented before happening. The output data of this phase
are detailed plans for maintenance, which include failure
causes and solutions.
3.2.3 EOL
When a product enters its EOL period, volume decisions
should be made which concern the EOL product recycle or
disposal. On the basis of maintenance history information,
product status information, and usage environment informa-
tion from MOL period, the degradation status and remaining
value of individual components can be calculated. With the
purpose to maximize values of EOL products, suitable EOL
recovery options such as recycle, reuse, remanufacturing, and
disposal should be decided considering product status. With
the help of advanced analytics methods, an optimal schedul-
ing project including when, how, where, and what to recycle
can be obtained.
4 Potential application of “Big Data” techniques
in PLM
4.1 Framework of “Big Data” in PLM
In BOL period, the main phases are design and production.
Marketing analysis and product design make up the design
phase while the production phase involves procurement, prod-
uct manufacturing, and equipment management.
In the MOL period, which consists of logistics, utility, and
maintenance phases, “Big Data” presents huge potential in
warehouse management, product transport, product training,
product supporting, and predictive and preventive
maintenance.

In the EOL period, when the only focus is how to process
obsolete products, “Big Data” plays an important role in mak-
ing EOL product recovery decision and reverse logistics plan.
All these activities and their according potential applica-
tions of “Big Data” are illustrated in Fig. 3.
4.2 Beginning of life
4.2.1 Marketing analysis
There are two parts of the tasks of marketing analysis. First,
figuring out who our customers are, and the other is knowing
what their needs are. Customers have various needs and de-
sires, depending upon the characteristics of the customer.
Thus, the first question is to identify which kind of customers
has higher probabilities to buy the products.
Figuring out who are promising customers For example, as
a company to manufacture cars, although the targeted cus-
tomers are relatively wide, it is still mean to rank the cus-
tomers based on their ages, genders, and salaries. However,
even if the promising customers can be focused on middle-
aged men with salaries that can afford their lives, when a more
accurate targeting is needed as there is more than one type of
car being produced in the company, it is advisable to match
Fig. 3 Framework of Big Data in PLM
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
various cars with various customers, respectively. To handle
the large volume of information from the great amount of
customers is not an easy task only by traditional analytical
methods. Here comes the concept of “Big Data” which makes
it possible to pick the most matched customers from the vast
ocean of information.
There are three types of data which can contribute to deter-
mining targeted customers group: Historical data like whether
the person has ever bought a similar product or how his money
has been spent, which can be obtained from the sale phase;
market research data from questionnaires and studying papers;
and the last type of data has emerged with the development of
the Internet which is from the person’s browsing recording
and preferred Web sites.
All these three types of data are of great volumes especially
the last one. The combination of these data needs “Big Data”
processing technology to help make decisions about targeting
customers. A Targeting and Allocation of Promotional Spend
(TAPS) system has been proposed to help make decisions by
using a combination of historical data, market research data,
and the intuition and expert knowledge of a group of man-
agers [57].
Discerning customers’ needs for product One of the impor-
tant tasks of the PLM is to ensure customers’ satisfaction
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
which means customers’ requirements should be analyzed
before the product design.
Customers’ needs fall into three broad categories: quality
and function of product, time frame, and cost effectiveness.
Different customers have different particular emphases on
products. Some customers may have the preference for high-
quality products while others tend to purchasing low-price
ones. The data related to how to find out promising customers
still go for here.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy of customer experience,
a successful manufacturer can not only meet the basic needs of
customers but also anticipate their needs. Thus, the task here is
not simply collecting demands from customers but forecasting
customers’ unspoken needs by advanced analysis methods.
As the source and foundation of forecasting is always from
their related purchasing behaviors, correlative recent
searching recordings, and comments on their social networks,
there is no doubt that “Big Data” can have a significant influ-
ence on customers’ needs discerning.
4.2.2 Product design
Product design is an iterative, complex, decision-making en-
gineering process. It usually starts with the identification of
several needs, proceeds through a sequence of activities to
seek an optimal solution to the problem, and ends with a
detailed description of the product. Generally, a design pro-
cess consists of three phases: product design specification,
conceptual design, and detailed design [58].
A study conducted by Lotter B [59] indicates that as much
as 75 % of the cost of a product is being committed during the
design phase. Since the design process is vitally important in
the PLM, it is meaningful to research on keeping the cycle of
manufacturing functioning smoothly and cost effectively.
With the fast development of “Big Data” in recent years, var-
ious advanced techniques have been introduced to support the
design phase.
Turing the needs to specific functions Quality function de-
ployment (QFD) [60] is a structured methodology to translate
customers’ needs into specific quality development. To create
a comprehensive QFD matrix, there is no doubt that a large
amount of data should be obtained and analyzed with various
kinds of techniques and algorithms [61].
QFD matrices become highly competitive due to the high
density of product information found therein. Among the var-
ious techniques based on QFD, house of quality is only a
traditional one which will be gradually weeded out since it is
no longer suitable for the high speed of data explosion. As the
customers’ requirements cannot be listed exhaustively as well
as the product design requirements, let alone evaluation for the
relationship between them, it is necessary to propose a new
QFD approach to meet the challenges of “Big Data” and to
manage the complex correlations between needs and
functions.
Presenting solutions to meet the design requirements
Decisions made at the conceptual design stage have sig-
nificant influence on costs, performance, reliability, safe-
ty, and environmental impact of product. However, the
design requirements and constraints during this early
phase are usually imprecise, approximate, and even un-
practical. Aiming at presenting the appropriate solutions
to meet the design specification in conceptual design, var-
ious techniques and tools have been put forward based on
the Internet and Web techniques [62]. For example, shar-
ing and reusing distributed design knowledge and infor-
mation for product family design and platform-based
product development [58, 63], establishing agent-based
knowledge management system for decision support of
modular product collaborative design [63], implementing
Web-based decision support tool to better support the
multiplicity of contexts required [64], and developing cre-
ative design tools (CDT) to provide designers with flexi-
ble creative design environment to enhance their creative
design thinking [65] all present the potential of “Big Da-
ta” in PLM.
All these methods mentioned above are relied on
knowledge database and knowledge management sys-
tem. However, in the future, when design repository
[66] becomes bigger and bigger, “Big Data” techniques
have to be introduced to handle the large number of
diverse data.
Making final decisions on details of product Detailed de-
sign of product is the last design activity before the
production begins. The hardest design problems must
be addressed by the detailed design; otherwise, the de-
sign is not truly complete. Compared with source code,
detailed design is still abstract but should be specific
enough to ensure that translation to source is a precise
mapping instead of a rough interpretation.
A template for detailed design would not be of much
use since each detailed design is likely to be unique and
quite different from other designs. What are actually
helpful are examples in regard to guidance on detailed
design. There are countless examples which can be used
for reference, although only a small part of them are
valuable. In other words, the task here is to find out
the most relevant example as detailed as possible to
give comprehensive instruction for the new product.
There are lots of detailed design contents like Struc-
tural Chart, Control-Flow Model, Class Diagram, and
Collaboration Diagram. Each content has a data dictio-
nary to correspond to and the data dictionaries cover all
kinds of information which have great effects on

product design. Only by “Big Data” techniques can the
large volume of details be compared effectively and the
best example be proposed for the new product.
4.2.3 Procurement
In the procurement step, the main task is to choose qualified
suppliers based on the Bill of Material and other consider-
ations like price and reputation. The choosing process is relat-
ed to diverse factors, and it requires the handling of advanced
data analytics. For a number of factories, not all components
are produced by themselves because of the lack of particular
techniques or equipment. At that time, determining an advis-
able outsourcing policy is significant.
Choosing qualified suppliers In most cases, suppliers are
chosen under uncertain circumstances. Thus, effective
methods to evaluate different cooperative suppliers are of sig-
nificance. Especially in the world of global cooperation, a
large amount of data about suppliers’ history performance,
reputation, and other influence factors are required as well as
various advanced data analysis methods. For example, a com-
bination of the TOPSIS method with the analytical hierarchy
process (AHP) or FUZZY is examined to be useful to choose
suppliers under uncertainty [67].
Determining outsourcing policy Nowadays, tide of globali-
zation, rapid technological evolution, and need for cost reduc-
tion have motivated quite a part of companies to turn to
outsourcing. In the current environment, the objective of
outsourcing is to make production not only more economic
but also more strategic, technological, and social [68]. Thus,
determining the outsourcing policy is a crucial step in PLM
which requires the involvement of “Big Data” techniques. For
example, analytic network process (ANP) and the balanced
scorecard (BSC) are combined to build a cohesive decision
model for outsourcing strategy which has been confirmed as
robust [69].
4.2.4 Product manufacturing
As the core in BOL, and even in the whole PLM, product
manufacturing definitely generates vast data, like production
specifications. Product quality monitoring and simulation are
two activities that have close relationships with “Big Data”
processing.
Monitoring product quality A product test reveals a prod-
uct’s performance at a single point in time, but products are
continuously flowing from suppliers to factories to ware-
houses to retailers and finally to customers. And product qual-
ity monitoring system is needed at all phases of product
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
lifecycle. In this part, only product quality monitoring in fac-
tories are discussed about.
Future manufacturing systems will need to process large
amounts of complex data which are provided to workers for
maintaining the proper function and desired production per-
formance due to a rising demand on visibility and vertical
integration of factory floor devices with higher level systems.
For example, a context-aware industrial monitoring system
that integrates context data and existing plant information
can provide only the most relevant information for users dy-
namically [70]. Complex event processing has been imple-
mented in shop floor to monitor for event-driven manufactur-
ing processes [71]. Besides, with the help of RFID techniques,
huge amount of RFID-enabled production data have been
generated which call for the participation of “Big Data” tech-
niques to monitor and track the product quality in real time
[72].
Simulation and testing of product Product testing is an in-
dispensable phase for product manufacturing especially for
those complex big products which need to be assembled by
various small components since every fault of component is
fatal for the product’s normal operation.
Test data generated by automatic test equipment (ATE)
manufacturing environments is no exception to the increased
volume of data during the product lifecycle. The challenge of
this enormous amount of test data is how to provide people
with effective ways to make decisions from it. For example, in
the complex and critical aerospace industry where data visu-
alization reaches its limit because of huge data volume, pre-
dictive algorithms on “Big Data” from manufacturing test
environments are proposed [73]. “Big Data” techniques can
be applied to answer new questions about the correlation of
test data with the number of profits in the future.
4.2.5 Equipment management
Equipment management is an activity which concerns closely
with the overall production process which influences product
quality and energy consumption. Among the works in equip-
ment management, wear estimation and energy conservation
are main potential application areas.
Estimating equipment wear “Big Data” techniques have
gradually entered into the equipment wear estimation phase
because of their strong abilities to collect, integrate, transport,
process, and analyze dynamic and real-time data from increas-
ing number of sensors on equipment; for example, various
advanced monitoring and estimation models including kinds
of algorithms like integration of artificial neural networks
(ANN) and fuzzy logic [74], the least squares version of sup-
port vector machines (LS-SVM) and singular spectrum
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
analysis (SSA) [75], Adaptive Neuro fuzzy Inference system
(ANFIS) [76], and neural network-based sensor fusion [77].
Increasing equipment energy efficiency The whole life cy-
cle of manufacturing not only involves the flow of materials
along the cycle but also the energy in it. Among the disparate
kinds of energy spent along the cycle, the energy consumption
of equipment might account for a large part. Thus, increasing
the energy efficiency of equipment is an issue that should be
addressed as soon as possible.
There are generally two ways to decrease the equipment
energy consumption. First, improving the principles and con-
figurations of equipment, and second, proposing energy man-
age methods for equipment operation. No matter in which
solutions, there are promising application areas for “Big Da-
ta.” Particularly for the second one, in a workshop which
includes hundreds of different types of machines, it is truly a
cumbersome job to arrange which machine should operate at
what speed at what time. With the help of “Big Data,” the
optimization of equipment operation procedures can be rela-
tively easy to achieve.
4.3 Middle of life
4.3.1 Warehouse managing
Warehouse management is a vital part of logistics since the
benign warehouse operation can ensure the smooth circulation
of goods from manufacturer to retailers. However, along with
the expanding of trading areas, warehouse management has
become a complex structure which should consider the rela-
tionships between decision factors globally. At the same time,
the conventional approaches cannot continue to undertake the
heavy task which leads to the emergency of “Big Data” appli-
cations in warehouse management.
Order process For some factories whose operation model is
pull production, order processing might happen before prod-
uct manufacturing. In that case, as customers’ expectations for
product have an exponential growth in the volume of infor-
mation, the order process is a serious problem which requires
“Big Data” analytic methods [78]. For put production facto-
ries, order process seems much conventional which involves
the work of extracting useful information to appropriate for-
mats. However, since the orders may be generated at any
moment, processing them more timely and accurately is not
as easy as it looks in “Big Data” time.
Inventory management In order to meet challenges along
with global trade, inventory management should be improved
to a more intelligent level. To balance the need for product
availability and the need for minimizing stock holding costs,
an intelligent inventory should be built to identify inventory
requirements, provide replenishment techniques, and track
product status. For example, a decision support system apply-
ing modified fuzzy neural network (EFNN) has been pro-
posed for managing spares inventory in a central warehouse
to achieve the optimal performance [79]. The overall optimi-
zation of storage assignment methods, routing methods, order
batching, and zoning still waits to be explored [80]. “Big
Data” techniques are among the most potential methods to
deal with it.
4.3.2 Product transport
Transportation system has changed dramatically since the
happening of “Smart City.” With the help of volume sensors,
transport networks can be easily established based on the in-
formation transmitted from these sensors, which provide pre-
requisites for the applications of “Big Data” techniques in
product transport phase.
Tracing product Generally speaking, customers tend to have
knowledge of where their products are and when their prod-
ucts will arrive. Thus, a query system should be established to
present the information about product status as well as the
truck locations. Because the data in the system will be updated
along with the transport process, “Big Data” techniques are
needed to support the operation of this system.
Green transport planning In today’s environmental-
friendly society, reducing transport-related emission has be-
come one of the most important considerations when making
transport plan. For example, some companies would like to
seek opportunities to share transportation with other compa-
nies that deliver products to the same regions. In order to
achieve effective sharing which can both decrease emission
and ensure transport efficiency, a decision system should be
proposed based on the external information from other com-
panies. It is definitely a tough task as the data have almost
doubled.
4.3.3 Customer service
In recent years, “service” is an importance form of product
which is sold independently or with other actual products. In
some degree, the quality of customer service plays a signifi-
cant role in customers’ satisfaction. As for a company, there
are various kinds of products manufactured, assembled, and
transported all around the world every day. It is totally a hard
work to establish and maintain good relationships with cus-
tomers from different backgrounds. Thus, “Big Data” tech-
niques should be introduced to customer service process as
an effective and efficient method to increase customers’ satis-
faction when using the products.

Training Increasing with the complexity of operating ma-
chines or software, it is not uncommon that products some-
times cannot perform well because of the inaccurate behaviors
of customers. Although every matter of attention has been
explicated in user manual, training is always needed when it
comes to products with high precise, value, or risk.
As mentioned above, because of the wide spread of prod-
ucts, it may be impossible to dispatch instructors for each
customer. Thus, periodically arranging classes for customers
are necessary and cost efficient since traditional one-to-one
model has become inconvenient and unprofitable. At that
time, training has been transformed to a planning problem like
organizing school. Teaching buildings, equipment, faculty,
and class schedules all should be considered and a large
amount of data will be analyzed to make correct decisions.
In the other hand, the whole training planning ought to be able
to adapt to the changes like sales performance which means
only knowledge management with high speed like “Big Data”
can be applied.
Online enquiry Enquiry is a kind of supplement to training
and it usually has two channels as phone and Internet. Enquiry
on the phone is comparatively an old but still popular method
because of its timeliness while online enquiry often means
leaving a message which means it is not suitable for emergen-
cy situation.
However, with the development of business intelligence,
online enquiry is an indispensable trend and ensuring quick
response to customers’ enquiries is a critical characteristic for
its wide use. In some cases, auto reply has shown its potential
by figuring out key words in questions and searching for the
according answers for them. This process is complex which
involves pattern recognition, machine learning, and related
techniques in database. All of them have close relationships
to “Big Data.”
4.3.4 Product support
In traditional utility phase, it seems that manufacturer has little
to do with products. However, with the development of RFID,
every product has its own sensor and its status information can
be generated and transmitted to manufacturer. It is applicable
for manufacturer to provide product support by remote mon-
itoring and inspection.
Product quality real-time monitoring The service life of a
product is always calculated by year which means that mon-
itoring a product through its life span must generate an amaz-
ing number of data. However, to analyze product degradation
patterns, it is necessary to monitor product status continuous-
ly, which needs “Big Data” techniques to handle the sensor
data.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Product regular inspection In traditional mode, only pre-
cious products can have regular inspection, and this inspection
is usually in the form of on-the-spot service. Nowadays, with
the rapid development of the Internet and remote service,
product regular inspection can be done even without bothering
customers by remote sensing. Based on the information from
regular inspection, customized suggestions can be given to
customers for normal usage. Thus, the process of transforming
inspection information into meaningful advice needs the con-
tribution of “Big Data” techniques.
4.3.5 Corrective maintenance
The importance of maintenance has increased because of its
role in keeping and improving system availability and safety,
as well as product quality [81] and manufacture service [82].
In people’s daily life, corrective maintenance is still the main
maintenance mode nowadays. However, even for this tradi-
tional maintenance mode, it is no longer limited to returning
products back to factories or sending the maintenance person-
nel to customers.
Establishing the e-maintenance system The development
of communication and information techniques has allowed
the popularity of e-maintenance, which integrates existing
tele-maintenance with Web service and modern e-collabora-
tion. Not only information but also knowledge and e-
intelligence are shared and exchanged to facilitate reaching
the best maintenance decisions [81].
Some researchers have focused on applying “Big Data”
techniques to construct e-maintenance system which has made
remarkable headway. For example, a new e-maintenance sys-
tem has been proposed to achieve near-zero-downtime perfor-
mance on a sharable, quick, and convenient platform through
integrating the existent advanced techniques with distributed
sources [83].
4.3.6 Preventive and predictive maintenance
The RFID technology and Internet of Things (IoT) have made
it totally possible to track the products through its birth to
death and to link the products to their manufacturer. Thus,
the “Big Data” appearance can provide opportunities for a
new maintenance generation like preventive and predictive
maintenance. Both of them are different from corrective main-
tenance because actions will be taken to prevent the failure
before it actually occurs in these two maintenance modes. In
other words, as maintenance has gradually developed towards
this direction, the boundary between utility and maintenance
is no longer clear and maintenance happens as long as prod-
ucts are being used.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Fault detection and degradation monitoring As is men-
tioned in the product supporting phase, RFID techniques have
made it possible to monitor product real-time status. From the
information of the utility phase, the degradation pattern can be
recognized, like material aging mechanism in specific envi-
ronment. However, how to project an ideal preventive main-
tenance program which can prevent all equipment failures
before occurring is still a tough job considering the striking
amount of data. Transforming the status information to de-
tailed maintenance plan requires “Big Data” techniques to
analyze and optimize.
4.4 End of life
4.4.1 EOL product recovery decision
With the high-speed upgrade of current products, especially in
electrical and electronic product market during the last few
decades, much focus and effort have been placed on the waste
of these products. In order to reduce their negative impacts on
environment and human, in EOL period, the wastes need to be
properly handled, processed, disposed, and, if applicable,
remanufactured, recycled, or reused [84].
Predicting remaining lifetime of parts or components
While a product cannot be used any longer, it does not mean
that every component of it is useless. In most cases, the re-
maining value of parts is worth to be predicted which helps to
decide what to recycle. The predicting process is not an easy
work which involves the maintenance history data and the
component ID from the BOL and MOL periods.
Product recovery optimization After figuring out the re-
maining lifetime of each component, dismantlers can do
EOL product recovery optimization with the objective of
maximizing values of EOL products considering product sta-
tus. At this phase, “Big Data” techniques can be applied to
decide suitable EOL recovery options such as recycle, reuse,
remanufacturing, and disposal [52].
Enhancing the resource-saving recycling activities One of
the main purposes of recycling is to reduce the wasted prod-
ucts’ harm to the environment. Thus, it is necessary to ensure
that the recycling process itself is energy saving and environ-
mentally friendly. Aiming at achieving this goal, “Big Data”
techniques should be applied to establish an intelligent deci-
sion support system (DSS) to enhance and further resource-
saving and recycling activities associated with minimizing
environmental impacts and resource consumption during
recycling. For example, backtrack-free search technique and
a flexible and efficient database query have been proposed in
an intelligent DSS to guarantee synchronizing recycling activ-
ities [85].
5 Key advantages of applying “Big Data” in PLM
The use of “Big Data” will become the basis of competition
and growth for individual manufacturers. “Big Data” tech-
niques can be employed in manufacturing to enhance the in-
telligence and efficiency of design, production, service pro-
cess, and other kinds of aspects, which are briefly described as
follows.
(1) Enhancing the quality and innovation of product design
and achieving socialization design.
By applying “Big Data” techniques in product design
phase, the comprehensive quality of product design can
be improved, as well as innovation. Through a general
survey of the world top 500 enterprises, it can be easily
concluded that they all have superior design capability.
The common feature for these companies is that they
usually search for feedbacks of the users on the Internet.
In some circumstances, like company’s online commu-
nity, users are even permitted to join in the design phase.
Furthermore, these feedbacks can be quickly involved
into product design with the help of “Big Data” analysis
capability. Since the customers have participated in the
design phase by themselves, the final products are more
likely welcomed by them. For example, Xiaomi Compa-
ny in China (http://www.mi.com/) is a typical successful
representative.
Besides, when it comes to high-end manufacturing,
excellent product design projects require long-term ac-
cumulations of design data. For instance, products made
from the same materials can be totally different in quality
and duration of life. The variances in quality are mainly
caused by the diverse material ratios and process tech-
niques, which are mostly relied on the storage of data and
experience. Thus, if the “Big Data” concept and tech-
niques can be applied in the whole design phase of
PLM, all designers can treat the design tasks as the em-
ployment of data rather than dodging responsibility. In
other words, the management ability decides the level of
data realization and application.
What is more, applying “Big Data” techniques in
product design phase can enhance the socialization de-
sign. Before the boom of “Big Data,” product design was
completed by employees from a single company. How-
ever, designers all around the world can be accessed by
the Internet nowadays without the limitation of region.
Project managers can outsource the design work to more
skilled and professional designers, like through
witmart.com.
(2) Improving the accuracy, quality, and output of
production.
The second advantage of “Big Data” in PLM is locat-
ed in the production plant since “Big Data” techniques

can help improve the accuracy, quality, and output of
production. In fact, the information degree of Chinese
advanced manufacturing is actually high, where machine
tool in production line is almost automated. From the
moment raw materials are sent into production plant to
the moment final products are obtained, manual labor is
not necessarily required. Every computer numerical con-
trol (CNC) machine is just like a computer, and there are
dozens of quality control points along a production line
which will generate a huge amount of data per minute. If
a company has many factories around the world, the
company itself is a standard “Big Data” application mar-
ket.
Although “Big Data” seems new for manufacturing
companies, it is not that terrifying since company man-
agers can start small. At the beginning, data can be col-
lected as the dimension of individual machines. Then, by
combining with pre-established models, “Big Data” ap-
plication may be gradually formed. Through the accumu-
lation of a month or a year, it can be analyzed that which
factors might have influence on quality. Based on these
analysis results, products and manufacturing processes
can be improved reasonably.
(3) Providing accurate, high-quality, personalized product
service.
By using “Big Data” techniques, it can provide accu-
rate, high-quality, personalized product service for users,
including consulting, after sale, maintenance, and safety
service. In recent years, it has been reported that service
has played a more important role than manufacturing on
economy, which seems to show that service and
manufacturing are opposite to each other. However, ser-
vice and manufacturing are actually not that contrary
since the two parts have both been incorporated into
PLM.
In the MOL period, since product use status is always
being monitored and transmitted back to factory, cus-
tomers may no longer worry about sudden breakdowns.
Through the real-time monitoring for products, effective
and timely maintenance suggestions can be provided by
“Big Data” analysis to make users acquire more value.
For example, General Electric Company has applied var-
ious sensors on its jet engines and rigs for preventive
maintenance. Moreover, during the EOL period, the
quality of service is worth to be emphasized and “Big
Data” can exert a positive effect on it by making cus-
tomers feel convenient and comfortable with a reason-
able recycle plan.
(4) Accelerating the integration of IT, manufacturing, and
operation system to enter the age of intelligent
manufacturing or Industry 4.0.
Based on the technological concepts of cyber-
physical systems (CPS), IoT [86], and Internet of
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
Services [87], Industry 4.0 is an integrated term for tech-
nologies and concepts of value chain organization, which
facilitates the development of Smart Factory. CPS can
build virtual copy of the physical world [88] by monitor-
ing physical processes over IoT, in which CPS commu-
nicate and cooperate with each other and humans in real
time. The core of Industry 4.0 is data, and the integration
of IT, manufacturing, and operation system is the method
to acquire data more timely, quickly, and flexibly [89].
Take an ideal intelligent production plant as an exam-
ple; all manufacturing devices, components to be proc-
essed, and loading robots are equipped with CPS, which
have wireless Internet capability. Not connected by the
central controller unit, components are directly related to
processing equipment. Moreover, independent transpor-
tation cars can send components to loading robots ac-
cording to the underground sensing lines. All informa-
tion including production and sales files required for
continuing processes will be carried on by the compo-
nent itself.
(5) Accurately predicting product demands.
Figuring out customers’ needs accurately and quickly
is an effective means for manufacturers to increase cus-
tomers’ approval with the loyalty. With the assistance of
“Big Data,” marketing can be more precise and specific
than ever, which presents great opportunities for “Cus-
tomization.” Not only explicit needs will be met but also
diverse latent demands can be predicted and fulfilled by
manufacturer through “Big Data” techniques.
Except for customer’s needs, the performance of sim-
ilar existing products may also help predict demands for
new products. Thus, how to figure out and analyze the
performance of existing products is a problem that
should be considered carefully because it is not only a
simple survey but also a series of data analysis tasks
which involves “Big Data” techniques.
(6) Accurately predicting supplier’s performance.
Employing “Big Data” techniques into suppliers pick-
ing is necessary since data are the best proofs for
predicting suppliers’ performances. In fact, there usually
are more than one or two parameters to evaluate sup-
pliers’ performances. Price, quality, popularity, region,
environment, or even politics all need to be considered
if accurate predictions about supplier performances are
hoped to be made. Besides, the evaluations of kinds of
suppliers are in different forms, like work reports, cus-
tomers’ feedbacks, news reports, Internet reviews,
peer assessments, and so on. When choosing a sup-
plier, factors above are not equally important since
different fields have different emphases. How to
assign weights to different factors is relied on the
past data accumulation and “Big Data” techniques
instead of conjecture.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
(7) Providing manufacturing equipment with intelligent
sensing, management, and maintenance.
As mentioned in Section 4.2.5, “Big Data” techniques
have great potentials in equipment management, espe-
cially in estimating equipment wearing and increasing
equipment energy efficiency. As for advanced
manufacturing, machines are quite significant since few-
er manual labors are used. In other words, the health
status of equipment decides whether the production pro-
cess can operate normally. The situation of equipment is
like the quality of products, which should be real-time
monitored in case of sudden breakdown.
(8) Supervising and controlling energy consumption and
discharge.
In today’s environmentally friendly society, energy
conservation and emission reduction are two important
tasks in various areas, including manufacturing. From
what has been discussed above, “Big Data” techniques
can have a positive effect on supervising and controlling
energy consumption and discharge. For example, in the
“procurement” step during BOL as well as the “product
transport” step during MOL, “Big Data” can help make
intelligent decisions concerned with the shortest dis-
tance, the minimum fuel consumption, and the maxi-
mum profit. By making use of the sufficient data, the
greenest transport path can be planned to cause the
fewest wastes.
Additionally, in the step of warehouse management,
efficient order processing mechanisms mainly rely on the
advanced “Big Data” techniques. If all data can be man-
aged shapely and intelligently, there may be a huge re-
duction of energy costs about warehouse. Off course, the
recycle phase also illustrates strengths of “Big Data” on
reducing wastes and energy since the original purpose of
recycle is just energy conservation and emission
reduction.
6 Challenges ahead
As a new concept, “Big Data” has met knotty and profound
challenges like collection, storage, transfer, and security of
data [90]. When “Big Data” is applied in PLM, more specific
challenges have emerged which seriously hold back the po-
tential applications.
(1) Data collection in PLM.
When it comes to “Big Data,” the first problem is how
to collect useful data in effective and time-saving
methods. Maybe several years ago, questionnaire survey
was the best way to figure out what interests customers
most. However, in the “Big Data” age, with the
widespread development of the Internet, customers’
needs can be analyzed by their behaviors on the Internet.
For example, Google search records will be saved as the
base for future product promotion. When data are con-
nected to the Internet, the volume of them must be quite
huge. Data collection is not an easy work as it seems.
In addition, the other kind of data collection is about
sensing product or equipment quality in real time, which
may result in more data in a quicker way. The capability
of sensor is really important for “Big Data” since if no
useful data can be collected, all advantages discussed
above are like castle in the air. Thus, because of its foun-
dation role in “Big Data,” data collection is the primary
task in which properties of kinds of sensors and collec-
tion methods should be carefully considered.
(2) Data storage and transfer in PLM.
It is quite a hard and serious job to ensure intact data
storage and transfer in PLM since any small lack may
contribute to severe mistakes. “Software as a Service”
(SaaS) is proposed to handle the problems in storing
and transferring large volumes of data. When data are
generated where large-scale storage is unavailable,
Globus Online, a type of Dropbox, provides powerful
storage capacity to transfer the data [91]. However, trans-
fer protocols associated with large, unstructured data sets
still have challenges to get over to ensure the speed and
safety of it [92]. When it focuses on “Big Data” in PLM,
the data forms in BOL have already been incredibly var-
ious. As different kinds of data flow along the lifecycle, it
may be stored and then transferred to any form, like
number, picture, chart, light, temperature, and so on.
(3) Data process based on manufacturing knowledge and
experience.
Although “Data Mining” (DM) or the so-called
Knowledge Discover in Database (KDD) is an area
where a lot of researches have been conducted, its appli-
cation in manufacturing is still hard work since combin-
ing manufacturing laws and knowledge with DM is ac-
tually innovative and challenging. In fact, data process
with the features of manufacturing is more than
employing existing data process methods to manufactur-
ing cases. To get the desired results which can serve for
design, production, transportation, maintenance, and re-
cycle, data process in manufacturing should be deliber-
ated with the involvement of manufacturing specialized
laws and knowledge.
(4) System, service platform, and tool of “Big Data” in
PLM.
One of the obstacles that seriously impedes the wide-
spread of “Big Data” in PLM is its high threshold. A
company, especially a small company, does not have
the resources, like money or time, to develop a system
or a platform for certain data. The products manufactured

by various companies are different, and it is not reason-
able to apply the “Big Data” system which is successful
in one company to another indiscriminately. Thus, it is
quite a challenging job to develop a “Big Data” system
that can be employed by different companies just with
some small changes for adapting to their according fea-
tures. In addition, systems, service platforms, and tools
of “Big Data” in PLM are urgently required.
(5) Security of PLM data.
To make sure that “Big Data” techniques can always
operate normally, security of PLM data is a challenge
that must be overcame. To prevent the leak of data, se-
curity systems with advanced encryption algorithms
used in financial trading can be borrowed in manufactur-
ing area [93]. Like in financial or high-tech company,
data equal to treasure. Even when a small part of data
is stolen by competitors, there is a high chance that the
whole design of a new product will be obtained by them.
Besides, the safety issues from external partners or com-
petitors and the lack of trust between data analysts and
decision makers can also bring about great challenges for
“Big Data” in PLM. Only by understanding the mean-
ings of all data will decision makers propose intelligent
and practical ideas. Thus, if data analysts conceal parts of
data because there are not enough methods to ensure the
security of data, the whole manufacturing company may
suffer unnecessary damages.
(6) Data visualization.
Apart from challenges mentioned above, data visual-
ization is another urgent challenge for “Big Data.” When
the results of data analytics emerge, converting them into
easily comprehensible forms is valuable and necessary.
The size and diversity of manufacturing data nowadays
have presented major challenges to visualization tools
[94]. The great difficulties to analyze “Big Data” have
distinguished decision makers from data analysts clearly,
which means the communication between them is be-
coming tougher than ever. To some degree, the final re-
sults from data visualization may be the things that deci-
sion makers care most rather than the original data. Thus,
proposing appropriate data visualization tools is of great
value to get well prepared for the “Big Data” age.
7 Conclusions and future works
In this paper, the first innovative contribution is revealing the
fact that “Big Data” can be and is being applied into
manufacturing. Then, based on this fact, the paper has thor-
oughly investigated that in which specific manufacturing
phases “Big Data” can be employed. The application potential
of “Big Data” is enormous, and “Big Data” techniques can
Int J Adv Manuf Technol
accompany with the whole lifecycle of product. In BOL peri-
od, “Big Data” can discern customers’ needs and then take
advantages of these needs to instruct product design intelli-
gently. Besides, products’ quality and equipment’ wear pat-
terns can both be monitored by the combination of “Big Data,
” IoT, and cloud capacity [95]. In MOL period, the center of
attention has been transformed from products to service for
customers, and the data are always acquired by RFID tech-
niques. Based on these remote sensing data, decisions related
to logistics, utility, and maintenance should be made which
rely on the participation of “Big Data,” as the data generation
process is long and real time. In the end part of PLM, the main
task here is to cope with the data obtained before and building
decision support system with the help of “Big Data.”
In the future, the primary task is addressing the problem
about how to apply “Big Data” in each specific phase in detail.
What hardware facilities are required to construct and what
advanced algorithms are needed to be improved are both
worth to be studied [96, 97], as well as the specific enabling
techniques and methods for realizing the better combination of
“Big Data” with multiple techniques like IoT, cloud capacity,
and distributed processing techniques [98].
Acknowledgments This work is financially supported in part by NSFC
project (No. 51475032), the Beijing Youth Talent Plan under Grant
29201411, Beijing Natural Science Foundation (4152032), and the Fun-
damental Research Funds for the Central Universities in China.
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