Title: A visualised manufacturing information system for mass customisation

Authors: Qingjin Peng, Chunsheng Yu

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6, Canada. ' Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 5V6, Canada

Abstract: One of the limitations of current Mass Customisation (MC) practice is the inefficient system interaction between product developers and production data. Production data are normally separated from product model during the product review and evaluation during product development. Product Data Management (PDM) systems have been used to integrate product data in the product development, but the user-friendless interface and weak interactive ability of PDM systems have been the obstacle of PDM. This paper introduces a visualised manufacturing information system to integrate product models and production data. Virtual Reality (VR) technology is proposed as a visualised tool for the production data retrieval integrated to the process of product model review and evaluation in the product development. A manufacturing system can be reviewed and configured rapidly according to the need of individual customised products using the developed system. The proposed approach has been used to incorporate flexibility into the industrial MC practice.

Keywords: mass customisation; manufacturing information systems; visualisation; virtual reality; VR; product modelling; production data; product model review; product development; flexibility.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMTM.2007.013320

International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 2007 Vol.11 No.3/4, pp.278 - 295

Published online: 20 Apr 2007 *

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