As companies seek to control their brands and products across ever-expanding global supply chains, further visibility can be extended beyond the point of sale to the points of use across the product lifecycle. Closed-loop product lifecycle management (closed-loop PLM) focuses on tracking and managing the information of the whole product lifecycle, with possible feedback of information to product lifecycle phases. Implementing the PLM system requires a high level of coordination and integration of the product-embedded information devices (PEIDs) that track the products. To fulfill this need, the concept of closed-loop PLM, its system architecture, modeling framework, and metrics have been addressed.

Introduction: closing the product information loop

From a product lifecycle management perspective, a product's lifecycle can be separated into the following main phases: beginning of life (BOL), including design and production: middle of life (MOL), including use, service, and maintenance: and end of life (EOL), characterized by various scenarios such as reuse of the product with refurbishing, reuse of components with disassembly and refurbishing, material reclamation without disassembly, material reclamation with disassembly, and, finally, disposal with or without incineration.

We may say that between the first two phases, i.e. design and production, the information flow is quite complete and supported by intelligent systems such as CAD/CAM, product data management (PDM), and knowledge management systems that are effectively and efficiently used by the industry. However, the information flow becomes less and less complete from the MOL phase to the final EOL scenario.