Product life cycle:

Like human beings, products also have their own life-cycle. From birth to death human
beings pass through various stages e.g. birth, growth, maturity, decline and death. A similar
life-cycle is seen in the case of products. The product life cycle goes through multiple
phases, involves many professional disciplines, and requires many skills, tools and
processes. To say that a product has a life cycle is to assert four things:
that products have a limited life,
product sales pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities,
and problems to the seller,
profits rise and fall at different stages of product life cycle, and
products require different marketing, financial, manufacturing, purchasing, and human
resource strategies in each life cycle stage.
The four main stages of a product's life cycle and the accompanying
characteristics are:
Stage Characteristics
costs are high
slow sales volumes to start
1. Market introduction little or no competition
stage demand has to be created
customers have to be prompted to try the product
makes no money at this stage
costs reduced due to economies of scale
sales volume increases significantly
profitability begins to rise
2. Growth stage
public awareness increases
competition begins to increase with a few new players in establishing market
increased competition leads to price decreases
costs are lowered as a result of production volumes increasing and experience curve
effects
sales volume peaks and market saturation is reached
increase in competitors entering the market
3. Maturity stage
prices tend to drop due to the proliferation of competing products
brand differentiation and feature diversification is emphasized to maintain or increase
market share
Industrial profits go down
costs become counter-optimal
sales volume decline or stabilize
4. Saturation and decline
prices, profitability diminish
stage
profit becomes more a challenge of production/distribution efficiency than increased
sales

Request for deviation

In the process of building a product following defined procedure, an RFD is a request for
authorization, granted prior to the manufacture of an item, to depart from a particular
performance or design requirement of a specification, drawing or other document, for a
specific number of units or a specific period of time.
Market identification
Termination is not always the end of the cycle; it can be the end of a micro-entrant
within the grander scope of a macro-environment. The auto industry, fast-food
industry, petro-chemical industry, are just a few that demonstrate a macro-
environment that overall has not terminated even while micro-entrants over time
have come and gone.
:
INTRODUCTION:

All products and services have certain life cycles. The life cycle refers to the period
from the product’s first launch into the market until its final withdrawal and it is split
up in phases. Since an increase in profits is the major goal of a company that introduces a
product into a market, the product’s life cycle management is very important.

Some companies use strategic planning and othersfollow the basic rules of the different
life cycle phase that are analyzed laterThe understanding of a product’s life cycle, can help
company to understand andrealize when it is time to introduce and withdraw a product from a
market, its positionin the market compared to competitors, and the product’s success or failure.