This case study presents a top-down analysis of an example mail service from the product marketing level down to the resources. It identifies the different levels of the construction of a marketable product from services and resources and explains the major business entities in a tutorial style.

The goal of the case study is to build a common understanding of these major entities and their relations on the basis of a real-world example.

The authors are convinced that it is a necessary step to first understand the semantics of the building blocks that are to be managed in a PLM lifecycle before analyzing their lifecycle properties, in other words: We need to answer the question: “What are the essential parts of a construction?” before answering the question “How do we manage the parts?”

The case study uses decomposition levels for the analysis of product construction. Each decomposition level reflects a unique viewpoint and thus implements the principle of separation of concerns. In the progress of the top-down analysis, each level is the source of requirements to the level below.

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