Commercial and Technical Productization for Fact-Based Product Portfolio Management Over Lifecycle

Increasing product variety and expanding commercial offering create a challenge for companies in terms of keeping their product portfolio profitable and managing it through the entire lifecycle of products. Effective productization and product portfolio management (PPM) practices, supported by product structure considerations, may hold a key for product profitability over lifecycle. This article examines the current practices and improvement possibilities in productization and PPM, including the targets and key performance indicators (KPI), by considering the product lines of a global engineering company. The analysis utilizes the previous literature, company interviews, and relevant company materials. The article demonstrates company difficulties, which are stemming from inadequate definition of productization and imperfect PPM targets and KPIs over the product lifecycle. An initial framework is formed to support more holistic productization over product lifecycle alongside creating suitable PPM targets and KPIs.