Title: Concurrent versioning principles for collaboration: towards PLM for hardware and software data management

Authors: Matthieu Bricogne; Louis Rivest; Nadège Troussier; Benoît Eynard

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, CNRS UMR7337 Roberval, CS 60319, 60203 Compiègne Cedex, France ' Department of Automated Manufacturing Engineering, École de technologie supérieure, 1100 Notre-Dame Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3C 1K3, Canada ' Institut Charles Delaunay/CREIDD, Université de Technologie de Troyes, CNRS UMR6972 STMR, 12 rue Marie Curie CS 42060, 10004 Troyes Cedex, France ' Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, CNRS UMR7337 Roberval, CS 60319, 60203 Compiègne Cedex, France

Abstract: The change management (CM) and version control mechanisms used in the mechanical and software domains are presented in the product lifecycle management (PLM) and application lifecycle management (ALM) approaches, respectively. Based on their comparison, this paper discusses branching/merging concepts and utilises them to propose an evolution of the product data management (PDM) functions of PLM, thereby allowing PLM to become a collaborative platform common to software and hardware engineers. This evolution is an opportunity to develop a three-way merge tool for CAD documents. Recent works on model-merging techniques from the software development domain are evaluated in the process.

Keywords: multi-domain system integration; hardware data management; software data management; product lifecycle management; PLM; application lifecycle management; ALM; version control; diff; merge; agile design methods; engineering change management; concurrent version control; product data management; PDM; CAD documents; software development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2014.065457

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2014 Vol.7 No.1, pp.17 - 37

Received: 03 Sep 2013
Accepted: 25 Feb 2014
Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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