There are different understandings of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). This paper defines it as a strategy to integrate all company activities and decisions during the life of a product. To apply this strategy is fundamental to organize and systematize a Product Development Process (PDP) through continuous improvement (CI) and implementation of PDP reference models. This article describes a case of product development systematization in a specific automotive enterprise. During the case research, recent data was collected on the company’s performance and history information regarding changes on its PDP model and practices. This research suggests the hypotheses that it is important to implement a systemic continuous improvement process (CIP) on PDP and to analyze it in order to promote the PLM strategy.