The productive system complexity and its related information content are the main focus of this paper, which seeks an understanding of this complexity and the possibility of mapping and representation of the system information to optimize its management. The present study gains relevance for dealing with sustainability issues, mainly in the development of eco products and lifecycle management. Therefore, the proposal is based on the search for representing the complexity involved in the systems associated with product development in order to optimize the observation and control at the phases in its life cycle. This representation, which is necessarily of high level, should present complete diagrams with scope for improvement instead of the commonly used low complexity graphical representations, characterized by representative reductionism. The focus is on the supply chain control, which should be as tight as possible, aiming at better organization, productivity, and detailed knowledge about a product. Mapping the complexity and the identification of the control points provide a better understanding of the product life cycle. One possibility of having a systematic representation of this cycle, without reducing the critical level of complexity, is through the use of conceptual modeling.
Complexity; Representation; Control points; Conceptual modeling; Management; Product
