Service Lifecycle Management requires Object Lifecycle Management

In my view,  “service” both in it′s simplest definition as in just fixing what has broken  and in the widest as in in a life long ecosystem of monitoring, servicing, tuning and operation requires Object Lifecycle Management (OLM). It′s not enough to just apply the principles af Master data Management (MDM) and hope that the discipline needed to sustain the thread across domains exists within each domain.  

An example; the “As Built BOM”, a key object in many supply chain processes and a milestone in the service lifecycle. It is quite easy to position that object (which in itself is a structure of other objects) in an MDM governance organization. It is also quite easy to set a definition and identify systems used for CRUD in the traditional style of MDM. With that in place, it should be easy to create a digital thread to support holistic service Lifecycle Management. All it takes is to identify the point where the MAKE process is done and either hands over to the DELIVER process, or in the case of assemblies feeding straight into the next step; where MAKE hands over to MAKE.

Why bring OLM into that seemingly well-tailored setup? Because creating, capturing and providing the As built Bom isn′t just a matter of defined MDM domains meeting an taking a snapshot when that happens. It′s a point where lifecycles for several objects, several systems, several projects and the effort of people and machines converge on top of a joint configuration standard.

When all those factors converge, traditional MDM breaks down. MDM is based on outdated concepts for alignment, anchoring and communication. It is decoupled from the day to day tasks in line of business it is supposed to support already from the beginning (both traditional physical LOB and “new” digital LOB). Making data available to support the digital threads in Service Lifecycle Management requires Object Lifecycle Management (OLM), a different perspective than MDM. Where MDM implodes under the weight in its own governance structure, OLM shines in its ability to keep up with the real time demand that coordination across people, projects, systems and object lifecycles requires.

Just thinking….