Challenges in data management in product life cycle engineering

It is expected that the capability of managing the complete product life cycle in its phases will give the necessary boost for European Manufacturing Industry. Many efforts have been put into the creation of product lifecycle management systems, but it would seem that there is a gap between the existing reality and the specification of expected features. The article addresses this subject from critical point of view and tries to pinpoint the weaknesses of the existing solutions such as standards and database solutions. This work also tries to show the possible ways to follow that could help in solving the problems.