Requirements analysis in the implementation of integrated PLM, ERP and CAD systems

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system implementation is a major investment when the technology is used in manufacturing companies. This paper provides an analysis of the requirements for the integration of PLM systems with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems incorporating the design aspects of Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) within the product development process. PLM implementation deals with various existing product data and information generated over years both from CAD and ERP systems. Data integration is very challenging and has important impact on future decisions while creating new processes. The information management plays very important role not only in PLM implementation but also in the way this will be used in future production. Therefore it is very important to analyse how product information is transferred to PLM system. It also need to be investigated that what, when and how the data will flow from and to PLM systems

Design Opportunities in Service-Product Combined Systems

This paper aims to examine recent research issues related to the integration of service and product in view of industrial design. Further, it attempts to identify new opportunities for further research regarding “product-servicization” vs. “service-productization”. In the continued efforts to provide the users with fuller experiences, one major trend is the blending of products and services. Much existing research seems to either present cases or propose frameworks regarding the ‘connection’, rather than ‘integration’ between products and services. Broadly, two major approaches seem to exist in this area: 1. product-servicization, 2. service-productization. The former generally indicates adding more services to existing products, whereas the latter generally refers to making services tangible and/or visible in the form of a product. However, findings of an extensive literature search conducted for this study suggest one important deficiency in dealing with service issues around the product: the ‘integration’ between the actual product design and service elements for supporting new service-product system. That is the rationale behind this research, an attempt to investigate the possibility for the integration of product design and service factors which could be embedded in the design of product itself in new service-product system. This paper is largely based on qualitative research. New design research opportunities are identified by qualitatively analyzing relevant literature, synthesizing the information and presenting some cases to support the main argument of the research. Design-led Service-Productization is not, and should not be re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Rather, it should bring practical and tangible design issues related to new service-product system. Findings suggest that this approach could provide a new model of new product development integrated with a service scheme, which is a more proactive approach than “product-servicization”. Further development of this research could lead to establishing a framework for the Design-led Service-Product Integration. Keywords: Product-servicization; Industrial design; Service; Product; Integration</p

From Design to Production Control Through the Integration of Engineering Data Management and Workflow Management Systems

At a time when many companies are under pressure to reduce "times-to-market" the management of product information from the early stages of design through assembly to manufacture and production has become increasingly important. Similarly in the construction of high energy physics devices the collection of (often evolving) engineering data is central to the subsequent physics analysis. Traditionally in industry design engineers have employed Engineering Data Management Systems (also called Product Data Management Systems) to coordinate and control access to documented versions of product designs. However, these systems provide control only at the collaborative design level and are seldom used beyond design. Workflow management systems, on the other hand, are employed in industry to coordinate and support the more complex and repeatable work processes of the production environment. Commercial workflow products cannot support the highly dynamic activities found both in the design stages of product development and in rapidly evolving workflow definitions. The integration of Product Data Management with Workflow Management can provide support for product development from initial CAD/CAM collaborative design through to the support and optimisation of production workflow activities. This paper investigates this integration and proposes a philosophy for the support of product data throughout the full development and production lifecycle and demonstrates its usefulness in the construction of CMS detectors.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figure

A modular product structure based methodology for seamless information flow in PLM system implementation

Product development process deals with large amount of information generated from market survey, concept design, manufacture, test, limited production, production, service, and obsoleting. The information should be stored systematically so that it is easily traceable and reusable for future product development. This paper presents a methodology for seamless product information flow between the three main enterprise information systems such as Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing (CAD/CAM), Product Data/Lifecycle Management (PDM/PLM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) used in the process of innovative product development while implementing PLM. PLM implementation deals with various existing product data and information generated over years both from CAD and ERP systems. Data integration is very challenging in multi-national engineering companies and has important impact on future decisions while creating new processes. The aim is to define a modular product structure that can be used to connect the product information throughout the life cycle that can be reused effectively and efficiently for future similar products

A document-oriented web-based application for supporting collaborative product development

Innovation is a creative process strongly associated with development and deployment of new products, i.e., goods and services. This is essential in the global economy of today for sustainability and success of companies. Good collaboration between those involved in new product development is an essential requisite for this success. Such collaboration, which involves not only company stakeholders but also suppliers and customers, requires easy access to necessary data and agile communication and sharing of relevant information, which is distributed in a network of resources and users. Hence, web-based applications, decentralized repositories and databases are used to store and manage product and process development information. For meeting these new product development requirements Internet based collaborative tools and services must be applied. The use of web services is important in product development, helping the integration of data and knowledge bases and also processes and application interactions. This paper reports on work for managing product and process information, as well as documentation generation, throughout the product development process cycle in an Internet based collaborative environment. The information concerned includes product and process information, as well as product development history. One important aspect deals with web based restoring decisions and options made along the product design and development cycle, including product revisions and/or versions manipulation. The research work, focus is on the development of a document-oriented web-based application using Apache CouchDB technology and REST web services. The proposed application is described and the main functionalities are illustrated through some examples of use.Universidade do MinhoFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Development of a mapping system engineering approaches to classic product development processes of technical products: A work project of project management in product development

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThe automotive industry faces the challenge of meeting customer requirements while ensuring technological advancements, fast and cost-effective development, and high-quality production. Information systems play a crucial role in efficiently designing internal processes and meeting customer demands. Personalized solutions are increasingly adopted to cater to individual preferences while maintaining up-to-date technology. Information systems are utilized to record and manage customer requirements, optimize production processes, control inventories, and facilitate effective communication between departments. Product data management (PDM) solutions are widely employed, with 77% of automotive companies implementing them. PDM encompasses the storage and management of data relevant to product development, supporting the entire product lifecycle. As product complexity grows, efficient management of product data becomes essential, along with the optimization of business processes to shorten development time and parallelize tasks. CAx coordination, involving computer-aided design (CAD), manufacturing (CAM), and engineering (CAE), ensures smooth communication and coordination across the product development process. PDM systems act as intermediaries between CAx coordination and enterprise resource planning systems, facilitating seamless integration of design and manufacturing processes. Leading providers of enterprise resource planning and CAD systems offer software solutions for product lifecycle management and PDM, enabling centralized and accessible product information, streamlining development and management processes

Ship product modelling

This paper is a fundamental review of ship product modeling techniques with a focus on determining the state of the art, to identify any shortcomings and propose future directions. The review addresses ship product data representations, product modeling techniques and integration issues, and life phase issues. The most significant development has been the construction of the ship Standard for the Exchange of Product Data (STEP) application protocols. However, difficulty has been observed with respect to the general uptake of the standards, in particular with the application to legacy systems, often resulting in embellishments to the standards and limiting the ability to further exchange the product data. The EXPRESS modeling language is increasingly being superseded by the extensible mark-up language (XML) as a method to map the STEP data, due to its wider support throughout the information technology industry and its more obvious structure and hierarchy. The associated XML files are, however, larger than those produced using the EXPRESS language and make further demands on the already considerable storage required for the ship product model. Seamless integration between legacy applications appears to be difficult to achieve using the current technologies, which often rely on manual interaction for the translation of files. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions that aim to either solve or alleviate these issues

Development of an integrated product information management system

This thesis reports on a research project undertaken over a four year period investigating and developing a software framework and application for integrating and managing building product information for construction engineering. The research involved extensive literature research, observation of the industry practices and interviews with construction industry practitioners and systems implementers to determine how best to represent and present product information to support the construction process. Applicable product models for information representation were reviewed and evaluated to determine present suitability. The IFC product model was found to be the most applicable. Investigations of technologies supporting the product model led to the development of a software tool, the IFC Assembly Viewer, which aided further investigations into the suitability of the product model (in its current state) for the exchange and sharing of product information. A software framework, or reusable software design and application, called PROduct Information Management System (PROMIS), was developed based on a non-standard product model but with flexibility to work with the IFC product model when sufficiently mature. The software comprises three subsystems namely: ProductWeb, ModelManager.NET and Product/Project Service (or P2Service). The key features of this system were shared project databases, parametric product specification, integration of product information sources, and application interaction and integration through interface components. PROMIS was applied to and tested with a modular construction business for the management of product information and for integration of product and project information through the design and construction (production) process

09/21/1988 - Rita Nielsen

Organizations need to share and acquire new information to sustain competitive advantage in complex environment. They communicate through IT-based integrated systems to fasten communication and knowledge sharing for the creation of innovative products. Firms are, thus, extending their operations to integrate strategic knowledge from partners in the product development process. In this paper, we present a case study related to process innovation in an aerospace firm integrating its information systems with one of its partners to facilitate the design of the models of a complex product. We investigate on the strategy followed to integrate the information systems, the types of these latter, on their success factors and their impact on the product development. The case study provides important insights on the integration of information systems for product design outsourcing

Information System Product Development by Integration of Kano\u27s Customer Satisfaction Model with Quality Function Deployment

Product development of complex, innovative information technology related systems presents difficult challenges for technology managers, and new product failures are a significant problem. The main reason for this is insufficient decision-making due to the lack of a customer-oriented product development process in the information system (IS) companies, which is often related to deficiencies in cooperation between R&D and marketing departments. Integrating consumer requirements into the product design phase is an important factor for improving market success. Therefore, a product development decision model is needed for the managers of information system companies to make more accurate decisions about the characteristics of the new products that meet customer needs. This research examines various decision models for IS product design and concludes that an integrated approach including Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Kano\u27s customer satisfaction model is the most useful one for the new product development problems of the IS industry. For this reason, it creates a unique methodology to develop a combined model specifically for IS design by providing critical differences and improvements in this research area: Integration of Kano\u27s model into QFD. Then, it successfully tests this methodology on an information system product development case that presents an excellent example of information systems: A NASA problem on new general aviation (GA) cockpit weather information system development. Consequently, this research provides a unique, useful and valid decision model to prevent the IS product development failures, and successfully demonstrates the model on a relevant problem