Title: A product data manager supporting a new co-design methodology for SMEs

Authors: Domenico Biondi, Flavio Bonfatti, Paola Daniela Monari, Franca Giannini, Marina Monti

Addresses: Joinet SpA, via Barontini 20, 40138 Bolgna, Italy. Dept of Engineering Sciences, University of Modena, via Campi 213/B, 41100 Modena, Italy. Dept of Engineering Sciences, University of Modena, via Campi 213/B, 41100 Modena, Italy. Institute for the Applied Mathematics – CNR, via de Marini 6, 16149 Genova, Italy. Institute for the Applied Mathematics – CNR, via de Marini 6, 16149 Genova, Italy

Abstract: Today, SMEs are often required to provide a fast answer to customer|s request for products tailored to its individual requirements; in consequence, it is quite common that SMEs working in the same industrial sector are oriented to cooperate with each other in order to reach a market objective that would be out of reach for a single enterprise, and that can be better achieved from a consortium of enterprises. Often, the cooperation is a real collaboration among the companies in the design of the new product. This paper describes a product data manager supporting the definition and the negotiation of the product data within a co-design network of SMEs. The described tool is part of the results of Esprit Project 25360 COWORK (COncurrent project development IT tools for small medium enterprises netWORKs).

Keywords: collaborative design; virtual enterprise; product data management; PDM; product data exchange; product design; SMEs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2003.002136

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2003 Vol.18 No.1/2/3/4, pp.174-188

Published online: 21 Jul 2003 *

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