Introduction

The OSLC PLM workgroup brings people together who have a common interest in defining specifications that enable lifecycle collaboration and integration around ALM in the context of PLM, to inform an existing OSLC specification, or contribute new specifications.

The OSLC PLM workgroup aims to:

• Promote use of existing OSLC specifications in ALM/PLM settings
• Contribute towards extension or new OSLC specifications base upon need for ALM/PLM collaborations

Certian topics associated with ALM in a PLM context are being explored in this workgroup, these are initially called the ALM-PLM Areas of Concern, expanded here

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is proposed as business concerns associated with managing a product over its lifecycle to achieve the desired market and business objectives.

Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) is proposed as business concerns associated with managing a viable software delivery that constitutes or realises a software application.

(References to System here are proposed to encompass combinations or arrangements of deliverables or operating units of all scales whether viewed as Systems or Systems of Systems). That is, together, groups of products may form a system or a product may contain all of, or sub-system parts, of a system.

As PLM tends to be cross-discipline, cross-functional and extend to most areas of an organisation's business operations, the proposal here is to consider primarily where an application represents a product for sale and/or distribution, (or where an application may be a component of a software suite or system that represents a product for sale and/or distribution). There are also additional concerns to build out such as where an application is very strongly related to a product but may not constitute it, such as a test application, product configurator or even a PLM or ERP application.

Participation is welcomed from those with an interest or experience of applying OSLC or other industry standards to the ALM/PLM collaboration and integration topics, with a likely initial focus on scenarios and application of existing specs. We aim to enable and build up understanding of the value and application in a wider PLM or System lifecycle setting and hence provide additional input to existing specs then assessing whether additional specs are needed.

The PLM Workgroup was inaugurated on February 16th 2010 and has been actively meeting on a regular basis, you'll find the meeting details below. The workgroup meets at least once a month, see below for the planned schedule of meetings

Latest Summary

Working together the OSLC PLM Workgroup has proposed scenarios for consideration and selected an initial focus scenario for exploration. Consult the scenarios link over on the right hand side of this page under Input / Feedback.

The first scenario has been released for feedback and is in regular usage.

A PLM Reference model has been prepared for adoption and is being used regulalry to support the analysis.

Current focus is on the analysis of the existing OLSC Specs with respect to the PLM Reference mode plus highlighting the way current tools support the scenario and examples in the reference model. A storyboard to highlight the use of product context within the scenario and support by some of today's ALM-PLM applications is underway (February 2011).

To get the very latest please follow the meeting minutes below.If you are new to this Workgroup consult "Getting Started"