Life Cycle Management is based on the understanding that products must be managed through several stages of their life as they evolve. These stages are product creation, product delivery and normal life cycle, product retirement, and product pensioning, as defined within KONE Spares Operations.
- Product Creation refers to the R&D effort, where products are systematically introduced to the organization, and sales begin to ramp up.
- Product Delivery and Normal Life Cycle refers to the period in a product’s life cycle where the elevator or escalator product is sold, manufactured, delivered, and installed as part of the business effort. This may go on for several years before a new replacement product takes over, and production finally ends. During this timeframe product change management efforts take care of ongoing product changes in production and installation.
- When the product is no longer produced, it is considered to be “retired“ from production. However, ongoing maintenance of installed units must still be supported, and spare parts manufacturing must also be managed during this “pensioning” time period.