Over the past few years, in a number of industries such as in construction, military equipment and civil aerospace, there has been a move away from simple product sales towards product-service. This is where the supplying company contracts to support the product over its lifetime, through service, product upgrade and eventually retirement and disposal. The move is seen through initiatives such as the Private Finance Initiative, Contracting for Availability, 'Power-by-the-hour' and 'Total-Care' contracts.
Product-service: what organizations need to know
The responsibility for maintaining, repairing and upgrading expensive long-lived assets such as buildings and military hardware in a product-service approach may extend for 30 or more years, and this means that for the companies involved the management of the knowledge and information associated with the assets over their lifetime is very challenging. The organisations involved must understand how:
- to deal with important product information safely and securely for many years
- engineers can learn from the experience of the products in service
- they can adapt products as customers' needs change
- best to organise themselves to adapt to the new approach
About the seminar
These issues were the subject of a seminar, entitled: 'Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) Through-Life' held at the Institution’s Birdcage Walk headquarters on 24 June, organised by the Mechatronics, Informatics and Control Group. The seminar, which was attended by over 100 delegates, explored technical, organisational and managerial approaches to through-life knowledge and information management (KIM). This was for long-lived assets subject to contract for availability or product-service type contracts. The seminar involved presentations from industry and from academics involved in the EPSRC/ESRC-funded KIM Grand Challenge project, and encompassed a wide range of topics concerned with the organisation and management of product-service organisations, and the information they create and use.
Seminar introduction
The scene was set for the seminar by presentations from Graham Pay of AgustaWestland and Peter Mason of Balfour Beatty, who established the importance of knowledge and information management in product-service for the aerospace and construction industries respectively.
Key topics covered
The programme then divided into two parallel streams covering organisational and business issues and information management issues in product-service systems respectively. In the first of these streams the speakers from the KIM project presented on such issues as:
- cross-sectoral comparison
- produce-service approaches
- contracting and supply chain management issues
- learning from service and making informed decisions
In the second stream the delegates learned about:
- the challenge of information management
- approaches to information curation
- rational capture
- product development in the transition to product-service systems
Seminar conclusion
The seminar concluded with a presentation on valuing our information resources, followed by presentations from LSC and KorteQ on approaches to knowledge and information management in practice.
Date for the follow-on seminar
The seminar co-organisers, Professors Chris McMahon and Alan de Pennington, were very pleased with the positive response of delegates to the seminar. Due to a positive response received we will be holding a follow-on seminar on 29 September 2009. If you would like to be involved in the planning of such an event please contact the MICG at micg@imeche.org
Christopher McMahon, Engineering Director, University of Bath
Introduction
Knowledge and Information Management Through-Life seminar report
Prizes and Awards
Note to new members