Sustainability consideration within product lifecycle management through maturity models analysis

Provided that product lifecycle management (PLM) is a complex system, many companies still cannot comprehend the whole amount of PLM benefits due to the lack of a full understanding of PLM functionalities. The present paper stems from an Italian industrial survey. It is aimed to investigate and collect PLM functionalities by studying PLM maturity models and TechnoWare, InforWare, FunctionWare, and OrgaWare (TIFO) framework. This paper also extends TIFO to TIFOS framework by adding SustainWare to achieve long‐term maintenance of product lifecycle. AHP methodology is developed to help companies to choose right information in the right context and time by applying the proper functionalities of PLM. A research framework to measure sustainability is also proposed to identify PLM component's sustainability level. The industrial cases conducted in two southern Italy companies prove that specific components of PLM application and business management contribute more to PLM benefits, and OrgaWare and InforWare are the weak points of the proposed framework. Sensitivity and consistent analysis show that the results are robust and accurate.