Product relationships management enabler for concurrent engineering and product lifecycle management

Abstract

Application of a product relationships management approach in PLM. Approach enabling the concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Implementation of integrated product-process data management techniques in a PLM hub application. [5,4,6]. This is particularly right at the 18 beginning-of-life (BOL) phase where product designers, process 19 engineers, and assembly planners are still working separately 20 without any recovery, overlap or feedback loop facilities/features 21 in their tasks. Past research efforts have led to successful design 22 for X (DFX) and knowledge-based techniques in product design 23 in order to integrate all constraints of each life phases (i.e. 24 manufacturing, assembly, disassembly and recycling) [7,8], but 25 some gaps still exist in the management of the various technical 26 entities and the control of information/decision/rationale flow 27 through the product lifecycle [11]. This becomes a barrier for 28 applying an efficient concurrent engineering philosophy in BOL 29 and remains a huge challenge to be tackled [9,10]. 30 Previous work argued that companies required efficient concur-31 rent engineering (CE) [12] and PLM strategies [11] in order to 32 maintain their business competitive edge. One particular industrial 33 requirement is the need for concurrent considerations of lifecycle 34 issues for different life aspects into the early product design process 35 [13][14][15]. It is clear that current product geometry-based on 36 traditional part and feature oriented modelling approaches-only The current competitive industrial context requires more flexible, intelligent and compact product lifecycles, especially in the product development process where several lifecycle issues have to be considered, so as to deliver lifecycle oriented products. This paper describes the application of a novel product relationships management approach, in the context of product lifecycle management (PLM), enabling concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Previous work has provided a foundation through a theoretical framework, enhanced by the paradigm of product relational design and management. This statement therefore highlights the concurrent and proactive aspect of assembly oriented design vision. Central to this approach is the establishment and implementation of a complex and multiple viewpoints of product development addressing various stakeholders design and assembly planning points of view. By establishing such comprehensive relationships and identifying related relationships among several lifecycle phases, it is then possible to undertake the product design and assembly phases concurrently. Specifically, the proposed work and its application enable the management of product relationship information at the interface of product-process data management techniques. Based on the theory, models and techniques such as described in previous work, the implementation of a new hub application called PEGASUS is then described. Also based on web service technology, PEGASUS ca...

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