Product to process lifecycle management in assembly automation systems

Presently, the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global competition and ever changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Product and process development in the automotive manufacturing industry is a challenging task for many reasons. Current product life cycle management (PLM) systems tend to be product-focussed. Though, information about processes and resources are there but mostly linked to the product. Process is an important aspect, especially in assembly automation systems that link products to their manufacturing resources. This paper presents a process-centric approach to improve PLM systems in large-scale manufacturing companies, especially in the powertrain sector of the automotive industry. The idea is to integrate the information related to key engineering chains i.e. products, processes and resources based upon PLM philosophy and shift the trend of product-focussed lifecycle management to process-focussed lifecycle management, the outcome of which is the Product, Process and Resource Lifecycle Management not PLM only

Naturally Occurring Asbestos in Alaska and Experiences and Policy of Other States Regarding its Use

INE/AUTC 09.0

An approach to control collaborative processes in PLM systems

Companies that collaborate within the product development processes need to implement an effective management of their collaborative activities. Despite the implementation of a PLM system, the collaborative activities are not efficient as it might be expected. This paper presents an analysis of the problems related to the collaborative work using a PLM system. From this analysis, we propose an approach for improving collaborative processes within a PLM system, based on monitoring indicators. This approach leads to identify and therefore to mitigate the brakes of the collaborative work

A Dynamic Knowledge Management Framework for the High Value Manufacturing Industry

Dynamic Knowledge Management (KM) is a combination of cultural and technological factors, including the cultural factors of people and their motivations, technological factors of content and infrastructure and, where these both come together, interface factors. In this paper a Dynamic KM framework is described in the context of employees being motivated to create profit for their company through product development in high value manufacturing. It is reported how the framework was discussed during a meeting of the collaborating company’s (BAE Systems) project stakeholders. Participants agreed the framework would have most benefit at the start of the product lifecycle before key decisions were made. The framework has been designed to support organisational learning and to reward employees that improve the position of the company in the market place

Generic PLM system for SMEs: Application to an equipment manufacturer

For several years, digital engineering has increasingly taken a more important place in the strategic issues of mechanical engineering companies. Our proposition is an approach that enables technical data to be managed and used throughout the product life-cycle. This approach aims to provide assistance for costing, development and industrialization of the product, and for the capitalization, the reuse and the extension of fundamental knowledge. This approach has been experimented within several companies. This paper presents the case in a company environment that designs and produces families of ship equipment parts

Visualisation of semantic architectural information within a game engine environment

Because of the importance of graphics and information within the domain of architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), an appropriate combination of visualisation technology and information management technology is of utter importance in the development of appropriately supporting design and construction applications. We therefore started an investigation of two of the newest developments in these domains, namely game engine technology and semantic web technology. This paper documents part of this research, containing a review and comparison of the most prominent game engines and documenting our architectural semantic web. A short test-case illustrates how both can be combined to enhance information visualisation for architectural design and construction

PLM as a strategy for project structuring and coordination

Successful Project Management (PM) comes from the combination of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques to strategically plan, execute and control projects with a variety of requirements and constrains -- In recent years, there has been an increased interest in implementation methodologies that not only allows successful PM, but integrates Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Business Process Modelling (BPM) and Business Process Re-Engineering (BPR) in order to achieve efficient planning and execution under low margin profits and strict time constrains demanded by clients -- In this paper, an integrated approach for product design and development in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) that requires PM and information integration is presented -- As a result, an implementation methodology in the Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is proposed -- This methodology is applied to support the design and construction of waste treatment plants and includes a novel PLM implementation strategy that considers mechanisms that offer high potential for developing countries -- The design of the proposed approach is presented including how engineering processes were identified, analyzed and improved through BPM and PLM; the approach emphasizes in the standardization of process management guided by PLM tools through workflows -- This aims to impact coordination and efficiency in the company’s NPD processLa gestión exitosa de proyectos (PM) comprende desde la combinación de habilidades, conocimientos, herramientas y técnicas hasta la planeación, ejecución y control estratégico de proyectos con gran variedad de requisitos y restricciones -- En años recientes, ha habido un interés en metodologías de implementación que no solo permitan PM, sino que integren la gestión del ciclo-de-vida del producto (PLM), la reingeniería y la modelación de procesos de negocios (BPM), para lograr una planeación y ejecución eficiente bajo estrictos márgenes de rentabilidad y tiempo -- Este artículo presenta una propuesta para el diseño y desarrollo de productos en pequeñas y medianas empresas que requieran PM e integración de información -- Como resultado se propone una metodología de implementación para la industria de la arquitectura, ingeniería y construcción, e incluye una estrategia de implementación PLM que considera mecanismos que ofrecen alto potencial para países en desarrollo -- La propuesta muestra cómo se identificaron, analizaron y mejoraron los procesos de ingeniería a través de BPM y PLM; esta enfatiza en la estandarización de la gestión de procesos asistida por herramientas PLM a través de flujos de trabajo -- Con esto se pretende impactar la coordinación y eficiencia en el proceso de desarrollo de nuevos productos de la compañí