Product lifecycle management (PLM) software selection using multi-criteria decision-making methods

The understanding of competition that has changed along with the development of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (4IR) in the 21-st century forces companies to follow and manage their end-to-end product lifecycle processes in the digital environment by using digital technologies. Nowadays, companies invest heavily in product lifecycle management (PLM) software to respond quickly to meet customer demands, to increase their market share, to improve product and production quality, to reduce costs, to increase their operational efficiencies, and to optimize their business processes. The increase in the number of companies offering PLM software and the fact that there are too many factors to consider in the decision-making process make decision-makers hesitant to choose the most suitable software for their companies. The choice of inappropriate PLM software will adversely affect all employees in the product lifecycle chain and the long-term sustainability goals of the company. In this study, the problem of PLM software selection in a company operating in the defense industry is handled and a new systematic approach is developed to assist the selection process. In the scope of the study, three PLM software alternatives are evaluated over 19 sub-criteria under four main criteria. To determine the criteria and to calculate the relative importance of the determined criteria, a questionnaire is applied to a 13-person expert group who are experienced in the fields of information technologies and engineering in the defense industry sector. The integrated ANP-TOPSIS method is applied to select the most appropriate PLM Software. Sensitivity analysis is performed to find out how the change in the weight of the importance of each main criterion changes the ranking of software alternatives.