article page
| 1
| 2
| 3
Ideally, the product creation process should be managed within a single integrated lifecycle management solution that spans both the technical and commercial product definition domains. On the one hand, the service delivery teams need to manage the specification of technical service enablers (e.g. presence), foundation services (e.g. PTT), and composite services (e.g. rich voice). The product management and marketing teams in turn need to manage the definition of the functional products (e.g. rich voice + gaming + football alerts) and market offerings (e.g. Mobile Plus with no set-up fee promotion), all of which are linked to the underlying technical building blocks.
Achieving an integrated and holistic approach will require operators to adopt comprehensive Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software systems to support the creation, management, dissemination, and use of product and offering definition data. These systems allow line-of-business, IT, and network teams to collaborate more efficiently and effectively, throughout the entire product development lifecycle that spans planning through to service deployment. PLM systems serve as an extension of the NGN Service Delivery Platform (SDP) and provide a gateway into the BSS/OSS layer.
|
|
Ideally, the product creation process should be managed within a single integrated lifecycle management solution. |
|
A key consideration when implementing a PLM solution as part of a NGN initiative is the nature and behavior of two primary integration touch-points. First, how does the PLM system interact with the network layer or service delivery platform (SDP) where the service capabilities are actually created, instantiated, and executed? Second, how does the PLM system connect to the BSS/OSS layer where product information is consumed and where processes for product ordering, fulfillment, and billing are managed?
A potential integration scenario with the network/SDP layer is where the PLM solution implementation involves one-way integration with the SDP, where the definitions and characteristics of service capabilities are imported from the SDP into the PLM system when the service capabilities are created and deployed in the SDP. As new service definitions are injected into the PLM system, product managers have instant access to available service definitions from which to
|
|
|
|
PLM systems support creating a layered, multi-dimensional product model that includes the full technical, commercial, and price definition of products. They also manage revisions of modeled entities, states of product definitions, and provide full support for review and approval processes. Information models are often compliant with TeleManagement Forum (TMF) BSS/OSS standards. Finally, PLM systems provide a variety of real-time and export integration interfaces to enable external systems to consume or reference the product data maintained within the PLM application.
|
|
easily create product and commercial offering definitions. A two-way integration scenario with the SDP with the definition process beginning and ending in the PLM application would further enhance this method. This gives product managers the ability to drive requirements for new service capabilities, and essentially supports a closed-loop mechanism to speed up the launch of new creative products.
An operator can integrate a PLM system with the BSS/OSS layer in one of two ways (or both). In the first integration mode, the PLM
article page
| 1
| 2
| 3
| |
|
