The paper explores data management in the product life cycle of three engineering domains – civil/construction, marine and wind energy – each with distinct but potentially common issues. The approach has been to assess issues within each domain against the life cycle stages defined in ISO 15288 “Systems and software engineering - System life cycle processes”, i.e., Concept, Development, Utilisation, Support and Retirement. These were then assimilated and comparisons drawn to identify common problems and areas that appear particular to the do-main. The paper presents a position statement, taken from the experience of practitioners in each of the relevant sectors; the purpose is to understand if there may be opportunities for cross-sectoral learning.