Life Cycle Networks

The globalization of markets and the expansion of product responsibility into the entire product life cycle lead to an increasing competetive situation for nationally and internationally operating companies. Therefore, to win this competition the use of the most effective and efficient resources regarding both product development and production is necessary. Since these resources are globally distributed the different tasks both within a phase of product life cycles and those spread over different phases are distributed as well. The global interference of these tasks requires a close multilateral co-operation of the companies concerned. Current information and communication technologies and modern logistic concepts offer high potentials to meet these requirements. The international seminar of the CIRP on Life Cycle Engineering is a forum for the presentation and discussion of current research work and recent advancements on this strategic issues for current and future engineering.