Wikis supporting PLM and Technical Documentation

Over the last years, Wikis have arisen as powerful tools for collaborative documentation on the Internet. The Encyclopaedia Wikipedia has become a reference, and the power of community editing in a Wiki allows for capture of knowledge from contributors all over the world. Use of a Wiki for Technical Documentation, along with hyper-links to other data sources such as a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system, provides a very effective collaboration tool as information can be easily feed into the system throughout the project life-cycle. In particular for software- and hardware projects with rapidly evolving documentation, the Wiki approach has proved to be successful. Certain Wiki implementations, such as TWiki, are project-oriented and include functionality such as automatic page revisioning. This paper addresses the use of TWiki to document hardware and software projects at CERN, from the requirements and brain-storming phase to end-product documentation. 2 examples are covered: large scale engineering for the ATLAS Experiment, and a network management software project

The future of computer-aided design and engineering at CERN

This working note discusses design and engineering processes at CERN and Computer Aided Design and Engineering tools. The main focus of this note is Mechanical design and CAE activities and how to share and organize the data produced by CAD/CAE tools. These issues cannot be addressed without taking a global view of the engineering activities at CERN. As more and more of the detailed design work is done by external suppliers, the design processes at CERN change. Traditional design work where draftsmen are producing drawings on the request from engineers is replaced by conceptual design work done by domain specialists and engineers. Furthermore CAD and FEM tools have evolved from specialist tools to mainstream utilities mastered by most engineers. Design activities nowadays can now be carried out directly by the project engineer without the use of a design (drawing) office. This environment poses different requirements for design- and engineering support activities as well as the selection of CAE-tools. Design activities should be carried out within project teams, while a small central design office should be maintained as a centre of competence for integration studies with CAD and Digital Mockup. Increased focus on CAD-interoperability and data exchange with suppliers is recommended

An analysis of TWiki performance following computer simulation of overuse

The web collaboration platform TWiki (TWiki.org) was installed at CERN by IT-PS following a request for a Wiki from group of software developers. Since then, TWiki has grown in popularity and today the statistics (Jones, 2008) shows more than 4000 registered editors and over 40000 topics. In order to guarantee acceptable performance for the future, a risk assessment would help to identify any bottlenecks that the system may come across. In particular, it may prove difficult for the current file system to cope with the increasing number of topics. Simulating future use can help forecast when such difficulties would arise

Implementing an engineering data management system for the LHC accelerator and experiments: the CEDAR project

The huge quantities of data required for the design, building and operation of the LHC and its experiments require consistent management and storage. The CEDAR project aims at implementing an Engineering Data Management System (EDMS) at CERN. After having defined what is an EDMS and what are the expected benefits for the LHC we present the activities held in CEDAR, during the selection and pilot project phases. Lessons learned and conclusions reached through the pilot projects are then summarised

Document management guidelines for distributed project networks

This paper provides the project engineer with guidelines or a checklist on tasks that must be considered, defined and documented before the project can successfully implement a document management system in geographically distributed project environment. Topics ranging from configuration management, approval process, document types, user administration and document naming are covered. The underlying cases of the paper are that of CERN (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) and its latest accelerator project, together with the Nordisk Industrifond -funded Connecting Distributed Competencies (NI#: 98082) project, with a focus on distributed shipbuilding processes. Keywords: distributed project management, product data management, networking, document management, virtual workspace

Towards the Extended Enterprise in Project Business

This paper studies the evolution of engineering information systems towards full support of distributed operations in project business. The results reported are based on an industrial project called Connecting Distributed Competencies (CoDisCo). With multiple industrial collaborators the project brings together project management, Internet and the construction of complex products. The aim of the project is to outline the best practices, both managerial and tool-wise, on how to connect distributed partners and their competencies in such a way that the end-product is delivered in time, with right quality, reliable documentation and within the planned budget frame. From the cases ranging from complex scientific instrumentation to traditional industries such as shipbuilding it becomes evident that modern communication systems can improve efficiency and reduce mistakes, yet they do not make well-allocated face-to- face reviews with collaborating parties obsolete. It is also reported that despite the sophisticated network applications the routines performed with them are trivial and that higher-level system integration between parties requires information to be structured in a coherent way. Introduction of formal data structures is laborious, but when completed project efficiency is improved. It is concluded that in order to turn project-oriented businesses into extended enterprises the deployment of Internet and WWW play a decisive role. Keywords: configuration management, document management, project management, Internet, World Wide Web (WWW), distributed product development, networking, one-of-a-kind manufacturing, complex products, supply chain management

The CEDAR Project

The LHC project at CERN requires both the handling of a huge amount of engineering information and the control of the coherence of this information as the design work evolves on the machine and the experiments. A commercial Engineering Data Management System, (EDMS), is being implemented to manage data for the design, construction, installation and maintenance of both the accelerator and the experiments. This CERN-wide project is called CEDAR The World Wide Web is used to make the information accessible at CERN and in the external collaborating laboratories around the world. In this paper we describe the objectives of the CEDAR project, the different subprojects in the machine and the experiments as well as the first results of the implementation work

Basic EDMS concepts and information structures at CERN

Life-cycle support of a product such as an LHC detector from design and construction to maintenance, requires that the data describing the product is structured in a coherent manner. This note explains the basic concepts and objects in the Engineering Data Management System (EDMS) CADIM/EDB in use at CERN and gives some recommendations for how to structure information in Engineering projects in order to benefit the most from the functionality of an EDMS. Although using CERN specific examples, the paper also applies to other engineering projects and EDM systems