EXPLORATION OF COLLABORATIVE DESIGN SPACES: ENGINEERING INTERACTIONS AND WORKFLOWS IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) initiatives can improve an enterprise’s efficiency by increasing collaborative design opportunities within its business structure. PLM solutions provide digital mediums to collaborate on all aspects of a company’s workflow, including engineering, testing, manufacturing, marketing, business, and field support services. This paper examines the major PLM tools and software used to establish a collaborative engineering design space; computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided engineering (CAE), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and product data management (PDM). The interactions between these PLM tools and a design team’s organizational structure are analyzed to determine some of the most effective PLM integration strategies to improve collaboration for all business functions. Engineering enterprises may split their work functions into technical and non-technical categories and match them with PLM solutions to create a collaborative design space that integrates all departments. A case study presents a university design team whose objective was collaborative creation of a digital twin for a scale tracked vehicle. The Siemens Teamcenter software tool was integrated within the team’s design procedures to improve the process. The results of integrating advanced PDM software into their workflow, including troubleshooting issues and problems, were explored in this paper. PDM and workflow interactions throughout the case study produced many unique outcomes that require additional PLM engineering solutions. Overall, advanced PDM software increased collaboration and efficiency of their design process

Integrated Project Support Study Group : findings

The challenges of the LHC project have lead CERN to produce a comprehensive set of project management tools covering engineering data management, project scheduling and costing, event management and document management. Each of these tools represents a significant and world-recognised advance in their respective domains. Reviewing the offering on the eve of LHC commissioning one can identify three major challenges: 1. How to integrate the tools to provide a uniform and integrated full-product lifecycle solution 2. How to evolve the functionality in certain areas to address weaknesses identified with our experience in constructing the LHC and integrate emerging industry best practices 3. How to coherently package the offering not just for future projects in CERN, but moreover in the context of providing a centre of excellence for worldwide collaboration in future HEP projects

A data preparation and migration framework for implementing modular product structures in PLM

This paper reports the research on the complex process of implementing modular product structures in a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. There are many challenges in implementing the system. One main challenge is organising or mapping existing product data and migrating it to the new PLM system. Companies often use a PLM tool for management of CAD files, documents and drawings, but they do not take advantage of the full potential of the PLM system to support the development activities of modular products. Product data management tools are used mainly for product CAD data management and PLM systems support by automating and managing some of the operational complexity of modular product design. The aim of this research is to propose a data model that can be used for implementing modular product structures in a PLM system and a tool that can formalise the existing data so as to migrate it into the PLM system

Lifecycle perspectives on product data management

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, Technology and Policy Program, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-109).Implementing a new IT system often requires the enterprise to transform in order to maximally leverage the capabilities generated by the new system. The challenge in using IT as an enabler to change arises from the need to synergistically redesign processes, develop and implement a solution using internal talent and external suppliers, and establish adoption by users. Product Data Management (PDM) technology represents a substantial portion of large industry IT investment over the last decade. The ability to manage and deliver product data throughout the lifecycle has become increasingly important to the aerospace enterprise as products become more complex, cost and development cycles shorten, and customer, partner, and supplier relationships evolve. Currently, the aerospace community does not have capability to provide traceability from requirements and design through field maintenance. While initially an attempt to understand the application of PDM in product development, what emerged was a study in how PDM affects and enables lean enterprise transformation. The selection, development, and deployment of PDM solutions were studied in the aerospace industry in order to enable better implementation decisions in varying complex environments. Organizational, technical, and cultural factors were considered as they contribute to a PDM's effectiveness. .(cont.) A current-state observation of nine aerospace company sites highlights the difficulty in reaching the technology's full potential to deliver customer value. Data show that PDMs are being used primarily to manage design engineering data and are not tightly integrated with other business systems. The data also show a distinct difference between prime and supplier companies' spending on and capability of their respective data management systems. While the value of PDM to product development includes better data quality, traceability and transparency, value to the enterprise is also found beyond the traditional role of PDM. Looking horizontally across the lifecycle and vertically through the hierarchical relationships, PDM provides opportunities for organizational and process change and stakeholder involvement, both important tenets for evolving into a lean enterprise. This conclusion is supported by both the site interviews and the two case studiesby Erisa K. Hines.S.M

Soveltuvuusselvitys SolidWorks-Flow-integraatiosta

Hajautetut suunnitteluympäristöt hyödyntävät PDM/PLM-järjestelmiä organisaatiolle yhteisen materiaalin hallintaan. Eri CAD-ohjelmistojen välinen yhteensopivuus yhteisen PDM/PLM-järjestelmän kanssa aiheuttaa kuitenkin usein haasteita. Vertex Systems Oy haluaa tarjota ratkaisunsa tällaiseen haasteeseen mahdollistamalla oman PDM/PLM-järjestelmänsä, Flow’n, integraation laajasti käytössä olevaan SolidWorks-suunnitteluohjelmistoon. Tässä selvityksessä tutkitaankin integraatiossa huomioon otettavia seikkoja sekä toteutetaan SolidWorks yhteensopiva lisäosa, jolla pyritään mahdollistamaan dokumenttien hallinta Flow’n avulla. Selvityksen alussa perehdytään yleisesti tuotetietoon ja sen hallintaan sekä Vertex Systemsin PDM/PLM-järjestelmä Flow’n toimintoihin. Tämän pohjalta selvitetään SolidWorksin ja Flow’n rajapintojen tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia ja rajoitteita, sekä selvitetään mahdollisesti tarvittavaa yritysyhteistyötä. Myös liitoksen ohjelmallisen toteuttamisen vaatimukset otetaan tutkimuksessa huomioon. Ohjelmalliset vaatimukset huomioiden lisäosan toteutuksessa päädyttiin C#-ohjelmointikieleen, joka soveltuu sekä SolidWorksin rajapinnan että Flow’n toistaiseksi kehityksessä olevan REST-arkkitehtuuriin perustuvan rajapinnan käyttöön. Tutkimuksen lopputuloksena integraation toteuttaminen todettiin mahdolliseksi. Yhteis-työkumppanuus SolidWorksin kanssa todettiin sekä integraation kehityksen että valmiin tuotteen markkinoinnin ja myynnin kannalta hyödylliseksi tekijäksi. Selvityksen lopuksi toteutettu SolidWorks-dokumenttien luonnin, viennin ja tuonnin sekä revisioinnin mahdollistava SolidWorks-yhteensopiva lisäosa osoitti kuitenkin, ettei yhteistyökumppanuutta välttämättä tarvita vielä integraation kehitysvaiheessa. Rajapintojen tarjoamien palveluiden kehittyessä integraation todetaan olevan vietävissä samalle tasolle, kuin mitä se tällä hetkellä Vertex Systemsin omien CAD-tuotteiden ja Flow’n välillä on

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

DEVELOPMENT OF A DESIGN METHOD TO REDUCE CHANGE PROPAGATION EFFECTS

ABSTRACT This dissertation presents a design method to reduce engineering changes caused due to change propagation effect. The method helps designers to systematically plan a verification, validation, and test (VV&T) plan. The rationale behind such a method is founded on a well-accepted principle that a robust validation plan can reduce design changes. However, such method has not yet been developed in mechanical engineering domain, so a method from software engineering has been adopted and extended to address the limitations in the existing design evaluation tools. Tools extensively used in industry, such as FMEA, and in academia have been reviewed to determine if they can identify different propagation pathways including variant, behavior, organization, and geometric pathways. As a result, it is found that variant and organizational pathways are not identified in any of these tools -- propagation in these pathways have caused major product failure in commercial vehicle and automatic fire sprinkler manufacturing industries. A seven-step VV&T method is proposed to address the aforementioned gap in which each step is tailored to suit mechanical engineering needs. The major contribution is developing the construct to identify variant and organization pathways and a prescriptive method. It has been validated in a leading commercial vehicle manufacturer, one of the passenger car manufacturing giants, and an automatic fire sprinkler manufacturer. The results from these three companies indicate the proposed VV&T method enables designers to identify variant and organizational pathways and evaluate them, which in turn can reduce design changes due to propagation effects. Objective evidence obtained from the fire sprinkler manufacturing company supports this claim. \u27If we know what assembly combination to test with, testing is not a problem...and if it can prevent a failure of this magnitude --I think this method can --it can be extremely beneficial...\u27 - Project engineer, commercial vehicle manufacture