middle of life (MOL)

Middle of life (MOL), in the context of manufacturing and product lifecycles, is the segment of a product’s existence in which it is established in the marketplace.

For successful products, the MOL stage is the one that lasts longest. Manufacturers sometimes employ extension strategies, such as price cuts and rebranding efforts, in the attempt to keep a product in the MOL stage instead of allowing it to lose market share and begin its descent into the end-of-life (EOL) stage, where it ends its useful life.

Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a systematic approach to managing the series of changes a product goes through, from its design and development to its ultimate retirement or disposal. PLM software can be used to automate the management of product-related data and integrate the data with other business processes such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and manufacturing execution systems (MES).

The marketing product cycle differs from the manufacturing and general business product lifecycle concept in that it is generally concentrated in the MOL stage and is less concerned with the beginning and end of life stages, in which marketing is less relevant.