This paper discusses about the evolution of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) through the introduction of an emerging vision in engineering design, proactive engineering. Over the last two decades, engineering design has seen some relevant approaches covering sequential engineering and then concurrent engineering (CE). Indeed, this shift was required to encompass knowledge integration issue into product design stages. This has led to relevant approaches such as design for X, parametric design, PLM-based approaches, decision-making support and ontology-based approaches to name a few. Proactive engineering can be considered as an emerging engineering framework which integrates as early as possible lifecycle knowledge and technological constraints in product design and manage those knowledge in an integrated and harmonious manner. The fact of using lifecycle process knowledge as design context demands therefore the definition of downstream processes before defining he product geometry so as to overcome current limitations in CE oriented PLM approaches. Hence, with such stakes, understanding and awareness becomes crucial in PLM in order to deliver well-balanced products.