Modelo de Ciclo de Vida de Producto Ampliado: Abordaje del CVP desde el Enfoque de Grandes Sistemas Tecnológicos

Abstract

The Expanded Life Cycle Product (Expanded LCP) model is a proposal developed from the confluence of two pre-existing visions: on the one hand, the conception of large technological systems, developed by Thomas Hughes in 1987 and, on the other hand, the life cycle product model (LCP). The Expanded LCP model aims to promote the understanding of the phases that follow from the invention process of a basic principle, the generation of the innovative product, its introduction to the market, its maturity and its decline. Each phase proposes challenges from a technological and business point of view and portrays the arrival of certain actors that make up a complex and varied social network.The essay begins by analysing the construction of large technological systems, a perspective typical of social technology studies, which concentrates its attention on the characterisation of the phases that large technological systems go through, understood as sociotechnical constructs. The following is a tour of the main features of the product life cycle model, a prescriptive model developed in the late 1960s and used for evaluating the product portfolio. Finding points of contact between both visions, the Extended LCP model proposes an analysis tool that integrates the two representations. This perspective will favour the understanding of the trajectory from research laboratories to market insertion, the visibility of the possible tensions as a result of the convergence of multiple actors with divergent positions and interests, and the appreciation of the focus on the decision making in the context of each phase or stage. The proposal may originate subsequent specific studies and research, linked to identifying particular trajectories at the product level, technical system or social group, to the generation of specific learning processes at the organisational level.