Industry 5.0-driven Product Lifecycle Management: toward human-centric, sustainable, and resilient manufacturing

Submit your paper here

Introduction

The manufacturing sector stands at a critical inflection point. The rapid diffusion of digital technologies associated with Industry 4.0 has fundamentally reshaped how firms design, produce, and manage products across their lifecycles. Yet the logic of automation and digitisation alone is increasingly recognised as insufficient to address the deeper transformations demanded by contemporary industrial, societal, and environmental challenges. Industry 5.0 — formally introduced as a strategic framework by the European Commission — reorients the trajectory of industrial development around three foundational principles: human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience. This shift is not merely additive; it calls for a structural rethinking of the platforms, architectures, and governance mechanisms through which manufacturing firms coordinate knowledge, manage complexity, and make strategic decisions over the entire product lifecycle.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) occupies a central and yet underexplored position within this transformation. Historically, PLM systems have served as the digital backbone of manufacturing organisations — enabling product data management, cross-functional integration, and process coordination from concept development through to end-of-life. This role has been indispensable in supporting the efficiency and traceability demands of modern industrial operations. However, the principles of Industry 5.0 expose significant limitations in this traditional conception of PLM. Systems designed primarily for data integration and process efficiency are not inherently equipped to support human operator well-being, embed circular economy strategies, ensure lifecycle traceability under evolving regulatory frameworks, or enable rapid organisational adaptation in the face of disruption.

This Special Issue responds directly to this gap. It introduces and advances the concept of PLM 5.0, a socio-technical and managerial evolution of traditional PLM systems that repositions PLM not as an IT infrastructure, but as a strategic governance platform capable of orchestrating lifecycle data, human interaction, sustainability metrics, and adaptive decision-making across complex and distributed industrial ecosystems.

The Special Issue is driven by four core research questions:

• How should PLM systems be redesigned to support human operator development, decision-making, and ergonomic well-being?
• What organizational and managerial changes are required to integrate circular economy principles throughout the product lifecycle?
• How can PLM systems enable manufacturing resilience and rapid adaptation to disruptions
• What governance, interoperability, and data management frameworks are needed to support these PLM transformations in diverse industrial contexts?

The aims of the Special Issue are therefore:

1. To conceptualize “PLM 5.0” as a socio-technical and managerial evolution of traditional PLM systems.
2. To provide empirical and theoretical contributions that integrate the three Industry 5.0 pillars within lifecycle-wide management systems.
3. To explore organizational, governance, and capability-related implications of PLM transformation.
4. To deliver actionable frameworks and strategic guidance for both SMEs and large enterprises.

The papers gathered here span conceptual, empirical, methodological, and case-based contributions, drawing on an established international community of scholars in PLM, manufacturing management, circular economy, and industrial sustainability. Together, they advance both theoretical understanding of PLM's evolving role and practical guidance for firms navigating the transition toward more responsible and adaptive modes of lifecycle management.

List of Topic Areas

1. Redesigning PLM Systems for Industry 5.0
2. Human-Centric PLM and Operator Development
3. Circular Economy Integration within PLM
4. Sustainable Lifecycle Assessment and Net-Zero Strategies
5. Resilient Manufacturing and Adaptive Lifecycle Management
6. Governance, Interoperability, and Data Management Frameworks
7. Decision-Support and Managerial Transformation
8. Sector-Specific Applications with Cross-Industry Implications.

Guest Editors 

Romeo Bandinelli, University of Florence, Italy, romeo.bandinelli@unifi.it

Monica Rossi, Politecnico di Milano, Italy, monica.rossi@polimi.it

Claudio Sassanelli, Politecnico di Bari, Italy, claudio.sassanelli@poliba.it

Virginia Fani, Universitas Mercatorum, Italy, virginia.fani@unimercatorum.it

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Author guidelines must be strictly followed.

Submit via ScholarOne

Author Guidelines

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”. Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 6th May 2026

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31st July 2026