This is the second white paper that investigates the role of product identity in a product’s lifecycle. The preceding paper [Parlikad et al. 2003] examined how Auto-ID technologies can be used to obtain lifecycle information associated with a product and thus enhance end-of-life decision making. Here, the same model is applied to decisions made in the usage (middle-of-life, MOL) phase of products. The lack of unique product information often causes economic losses for companies. This paper examines, with maintenance as an example, how explicit product information on individual products can improve the management of the product-lifecycle. On one hand there are potential benefits of efficiency gains in the maintenance process itself, such as efficiency gains due to a higher data accuracy and less manual mistakes. On the other hand the collected data during maintenance can also improve future product lifecycles: quality improvements or simplified variant management becomes possible.
After a trademark dispute, the EPC Prototyping Platform is now called "Fosstrak" (previously Accada). Fosstrak stands for "free and open source software for track and trace".
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