Data from start to finish: A System Life Cycle Data Map

The megatrend sustainability is changing the way industrial companies view their products and services and how they interact with the environment. In combination with digitalization, the way their systems (products and services) evolve is undergoing a significant shift, offering huge potential for optimization in favor of sustainability. Large volumes of data from the systems-in-use, software tools, and databases reshape how the system life cycle unfolds. This results into complex interrelationships between the life cycle phases and the created and used artifacts (i.e. models or production reports). The challenge for industrial companies is to get a structured overview of data sources, and data flows along the system life cycle. To address these challenges, a system life cycle data map has been developed utilizing design science. The data map illustrates the system life cycle phases, the related data sources and associated artifacts, and their interrelationships, i.e., the data flows between different artifacts. Applying the data map for a given system enhances data clarity and opens new opportunities for improving the system life cycle, its design, and potential for data-driven applications.