Abstract—In this paper, we present the information life cycle, and analyze the importance of managing the corporate application portfolio across this life cycle. The approach presented here does not correspond just to the extension of the traditional information system development life cycle. This approach is based in the generic life cycle employed in other contexts like manufacturing or marketing. In this paper it is proposed a model of an information system life cycle, supported in the assumption that a system has a limited life. But, this limited life may be extended. This model is also applied in several cases; being reported here two examples of the framework application in a construction enterprise, and in a manufacturing enterprise. Keywords—Information systems/technology, information systems life cycle, organization engineering, information economics I. INTRODUCTION S pointed by Underwood, L. [18] Information Technology plays an important role in manufacturing firms. Nevertheless, the success of this integration depends on how Information Technology and Information Systems are managed. The purpose of this paper is presenting a framework based in the information system life cycle that could be effective to analyze information systems and information technology adopted by a specific enterprise. Although we admit that this framework could be used in other contexts, our purpose is analyzing its effectiveness in corporations whose business is in manufacturing and construction industries. Since Richard Canning´s seminal work [3], life cycle is presented as an approach to describe developing system process. This information system life cycle is composed of a sequence of phases, beginning with requirement analysis and ending with implementation. Then, several variations to this process are considered, waterfall life cycle ([2][5]) and spiral life cycle [1] are just some examples. In order to improve this process, some researchers incorporated prototyping [13], RAD - Rapid Application Development [11], JAD - Join Manuscript received July 4, 2005. This work was supported in part by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology - FCCN. Carlos J. Costa, Ph.D. is with the ADETTI/ISCTE He is also with the Department of Information Sciences end Technologies of ISCTE, Lisboa, Portugal (e-mail: carlos.costa@ iscte.pt). Manuela Aparicio, MSc. is with LusoCredito, Lisboa, Portugal. (e-mail: manuela@lusocredito.com). Application Development [19] or PD - Participatory Design ([4][9]). This approach is extended and decomposed in several processes [15]. Even this approach is restricted to the development phase. A similar life cycle is used in the customization and installation of systems already developed, like CRM or ERP (e.g. [16]) or to specific environment like Web (e.g. [6]). But although emphasizing in an important phase, the development process is just one phase of the information system life cycle. What are the other phases? What are the main aspects to be considered in each phase of the processes? How to manage each phase? In the following section, a new information system life cycle is briefly described. This information system life cycle was then extended according to four strategies. Those strategies are presented in section three. In section four, two cases, corresponding to the employ of this approach to analyze a real situation, are described. II. A LIFE CYCLE FOR AN INFORMATION SYSTEM Based in an approach developed by [5], we identified the generic process of a generic life cycle: baby, youth, adult and senior. If we compare it with an information system life cycle (or more correctly an information system development life cycle) it is centered in the baby and youth phase. On the other hand, experience and case analysis shows that information systems became senior, legacy systems and die. According to this assumption, sounds reasonable to redesign the system life cycle in the following phases [5]: Baby/Launching, Youth/spreading or growing, Adult/maturity and Senior/Declining. Launch is a phase where technologies and general needs are identified. New solutions and technologies are also proposed. The argumentation is based on technical, operational, organizational and economical assumptions [14]. In this phase, it also takes place, analysis, design and implementation, which correspond to the traditional information system development process. It starts with requirement analysis and ends with implementation or installation. Spreading is the part of the cycle process in which a desirable spreading of the system starts, as a result of an adequate implementation Maturity is a phase that is partially covered by the maintenance. In this phase, it is especially important maintaining the applications, supporting the users, and Information System Life Cycle: Applications in Construction and Manufacturing Carlos J. Costa and Manuela Aparício A International Journal of Information Technology Volume 3 Number 3 180