An extensible product structure model for product lifecycle management in the make-to-order environment

This paper presents a product structure model with a semantic representation technique that make the product structure extensible for developing product lifecycle management (PLM) systems that is flexible for make-to-order environment. In the make-to-order business context, each product could have a number of variants with slightly different constitutions to fulfill different customer requirements. All the variants of a family have common characteristics and each variant has its specific features. A master-variant pattern is proposed for building the product structure model to explicitly represent common characteristics and specific features of individual variants. The model is capable of enforcing the consistency of a family structure and its variant structure, supporting multiple product views, and facilitating the business processes. A semantic representation technique is developed that enables entity attributes to be defined and entities to be categorized in a neutral and semantic format. As a result, entity attributes and entity categorization can be redefined easily with its configurable capability for different requirements of the PLM systems. An XML-based language is developed for semantically representing entities and entity categories. A prototype as a proof-of-concept system is presented to illustrate the capability of the proposed extensible product structure model

Past, present and future of information and knowledge sharing in the construction industry: Towards semantic service-based e-construction

The paper reviews product data technology initiatives in the construction sector and provides a synthesis of related ICT industry needs. A comparison between (a) the data centric characteristics of Product Data Technology (PDT) and (b) ontology with a focus on semantics, is given, highlighting the pros and cons of each approach. The paper advocates the migration from data-centric application integration to ontology-based business process support, and proposes inter-enterprise collaboration architectures and frameworks based on semantic services, underpinned by ontology-based knowledge structures. The paper discusses the main reasons behind the low industry take up of product data technology, and proposes a preliminary roadmap for the wide industry diffusion of the proposed approach. In this respect, the paper stresses the value of adopting alliance-based modes of operation

Object-Centered Engineering: A Methodology for Virtual Engineering

In the product realization process, it is not currently possible to go from business case models to the final production system in the virtual design space. Virtual engineering aims to address this problem. Virtual engineering techniques will allow users to track the production of a product or system from birth to death, from the complete business case model to the customer’s feedback on the first production run. To implement a framework that will handle the broad range of information that is necessary to track a product through its complete life cycle, an object-centered approach involving virtual objects is required. These virtual objects will represent the physical objects as they exist in the “real world.” To enable these objects to have extensible qualities similar to objectoriented principles, similar techniques to those used by object-oriented design will be employed. Some of these techniques include multi-representational models, hierarchy, inheritance, and dynamic access. One important justification for an object-centered approach is that it gives stakeholders and engineers a mechanism for discourse regarding the product or system under design. Giving the engineer and other collaborators a comfortable and familiar mechanism by which to share and discuss ideas is crucial in allowing users to gain understanding about a product’s key issues. These ideas and processes are embodied in virtual engineering and the method behind it, which is referred to as objectcentered engineering. These ideas and the object-centered method will be discussed in this paper

Product range models supporting design knowledge reuse

Redesign, where previous information is recovered in order to be adapted to a new situation, is an area of design where information technology can potentially provide substantial benefits. Information support to product design and manufacturing has been pursued through the use of product and manufacturing models. This paper introduces a new concept of a complementary information model, called a product range model, that aims to support variant and adaptive design activities. The general concept and structure of such an information model is defined in terms of product functions and their respective design solutions. The interactions taking place between particular design solution options are discussed, and methods are proposed for their evaluation against product specifications and design constraints. The concept of knowledge links is introduced to maintain the relationships between solutions within the product range model and the particular model of the product being developed. The work has been explored using injection mould tooling as an appropriate product range and evaluated through the design and implementation of a design support system utilizing an object-oriented database

Modélisation par les grammaires de graphes de la génération de la diversité dans les familles de produits.

This paper proposes a methodology to generate the diversity in a products family with Programmed Attributed Graph Grammars. Starting from the model of a Base-Product, this tool allows to obtain the family architecture and to generate the variants, using four types of operators. We illustrate our purpose with some parts of a kitchen

An ontology-based approach for semantic level information exchange and integration in applications for product lifecycle management

During product lifecycle management (PLM), product information fromCAD/CAE applications regularly needs to be exchanged and shared between the variousapplications. However, these applications often have different product data semantics andcorresponding representations. The interoperability problem caused by the heterogeneoussemantics and data representation is critical and needs to be addressed and automated.Recent research has focused on integration frameworks for CAD/CAE applications inorder to improve interoperability. There are fundamental problems that still need to beaddressed.We identified the following important roadblocks and sought to address thesespecifically in our work: 1) The need for an adequate product knowledge representationof engineering design/analysis, which is easily expandable, and customizable fortraditional and non-traditional (e.g. virtual prototyping) design information systems thatalso allows the sharing of product data semantics across all these heterogeneous systemsto support distributed, collaborative engineering capabilities; 2) The need for a way togenerate product data semantics by using engineering design/analysis knowledge tointerpret actual product data 3) The need for a way to reconcile the differences in thedifferent product semantics by finding underlying similarities between differentknowledge representations that are from different viewports and reconcile, and use thesesimilarities to then translate product data semantics correctly.This dissertation proposes an ontology-based approach for a semantic levelexchange and integration to improve interoperability, which includes an ontologybuilding tool, ontology mapping tools and custom tools to associate ontologies to prductdata. For the purpose of semantic level integration, a way of representing engineeringdesign/analysis knowledge using an engineering ontology is proposed. A layeredstructure is used for building knowledge into engineering ontologies so as to improve thescalability and composition adaptivity. Based on the knowledge, a semantic layer is builtupon product data to use concepts/relations in ontologies to describe actual product data,which can be used to represent understandings about a product design from differentperspectives. To enable translating different understandings (product data semantics)using different ontologies, an ontology mapping method is proposed to find matchingconcepts between different ontologies, based on three basic relation types betweenconcepts: composition, inheritance and attribute.A scenario is explained to describe the working mechanism of the system and todemonstrate the concept of semantic level integration framework for a simple example. Asample assembly is designed and simulated in different software packages and anintegrated process is made to exchange information between them. The scenariosuccessfully demonstrates the ontology based approach

Customization of buildings using configuration systems - a study of conditions and opportunities in the Swedish timber house manufacturing industry

The aim of this project has been to study timber house manufacturers and provide guidance to those who aim to increase efficiency through the adaption of product modeling and eventually configuration. The findings in this report are based on a series of case studies within the abovementioned industry, which serves as a basis for the analysis and recommendations given. The Swedish timber house manufacturing industry has a long tradition of producing houses in factories. In recent years, however, the construction industry has received criticisms for issues with quality and productivity, problems that is also valid for the timber house manufacturers. During the upswing in the past decade, IT investments in the industry have not kept the same pace as other investments. For this reason IT environments are currently growing out of date, which is one reason contributing to today’s problems. In many ways the timber house manufacturers resembles traditional on-site construction, especially in how they use IT and product documentation. Given the different conditions in the industries and the fact that timber house manufacturers can assimilate influences from other manufacturing industries, this presents an interesting opportunity to pursue for the industry. The results from the case studies show that companies have a potential to better integrate processes, use IT and manage product documentation. How timber house manufacturers view themselves also affects how they treat questions regarding abovementioned areas, which ultimately also affects how well they will be able to use configuration. Whether they see themselves as a construction company, an engineering firm or a manufacturing industry will have an effect on many aspects of how to run the business. The findings show that the timber house manufacturing companies has a potential in streamlining and standardizing product documentation to facilitate configuration and improving the product specification process. Companies should address three areas as a part of the change: processes, IT and product documentation. When considering these three areas together, companies have an opportunity to increase their competitiveness through more efficient processes and standardized product families. Clearly there are risks associated with introducing new IT systems and changing processes. Companies need to consider the risks and potential benefits with pursuing this path. Risks that should be included in an evaluation are for example; changes in the market, costs and quantifiable benefits from using configuration. The report provides a number of advices to the timber house manufacturers that might be useful to consider for companies that wishes to go forward with product modeling and configuration. For example, it is recommended that companies investigate how to define the roles and responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer, explore how the IT-strategy best delivers value to the business and consider to introduce a product development process