Integrating the organisation before integrating the system

Integrated Product Data Management Systems (IPDMS) are vitally important as a vehicle to manage the inputs to the design, development and in-service management of new product to the customer, particularly in the domain of defence where products are becoming increasingly more complex and diverse, with ever-increasing life cycles. Research has revealed that a high proportion of new products for Defence fail to meet the requirement specified by ultimate users. This paper identifies areas that present barriers to the customisation, development and implementation of IPDMS from the perspective of the Acquisition and Logistics discipline where an examination of the CE based systems within the UK Ministry of Defence for capturing and managing product data throughout the life of the product from concept to disposal, revealed that improvements could be achieved in product data management through consideration of factors outside of the discipline of both Acquisition and Logistics (AL), New Product Development (NPD) systems theory; that of organisation theory.