RFID in product lifecycle management: a case in the automotive industry

The circumstances of globalization and ever-stricter environmental legislation over the past decade have led enterprises to work together to transform products into extended products, and to manage these throughout their lifecycle. Innovative radio frequency identification (RFID) technology can be introduced as an enabler of product lifecycle management (PLM) business, by enhancing the traceability of the product throughout its value chain via automatic identification, enabling the collection of product usage information during its middle-of-life (MOL) phase, and facilitating the integration of product lifecycle information and knowledge across the value chain, thus closing the product's information loop from beginning-of-life (BOL), through MOL, to end-of-life (EOL) and back again. This paper will introduce a framework for product lifecycle information management with the support of RFID technology. A case study of how the framework supports the decision-making involved in the different lifecycle phases of the automotive industry will be described using UML models.