Title: Linking design and manufacturing domains via web-based and enterprise integration technologies

Authors: Wai M. Cheung, Paul G. Maropoulos, Peter C. Matthews

Addresses: Design and Manufacturing Research Group, School of Computing, Engineering & Information Sciences, Northumbria University, Pandon Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 1XE, UK. ' Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK. ' School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, University of Durham, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK

Abstract: The manufacturing industry faces many challenges such as reducing time-to-market and cutting costs. In order to meet these increasing demands, effective methods are need to support the early product development stages by bridging the gap of communicating early design ideas and the evaluation of manufacturing performance. This paper introduces methods of linking design and manufacturing domains using disparate technologies. The combined technologies include knowledge management supporting for product lifecycle management systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, aggregate process planning systems, workflow management and data exchange formats. A case study has been used to demonstrate the use of these technologies, illustrated by adding manufacturing knowledge to generate alternative early process plan which are in turn used by an ERP system to obtain and optimise a rough-cut capacity plan.

Keywords: PLM; product lifecycle management; ERP; enterprise resource planning; product development; conceptual design; knowledge management; enterprise integration; web-based integration; product design; manufacturing performance; aggregate process planning; workflow management; data exchange; capacity planning; early design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2010.031934

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2010 Vol.37 No.3/4, pp.182 - 197

Published online: 03 Mar 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article