Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

Product development cycles are greatly shortened and subjected to a growing competitive pressure. In parallel, product and process complexities are increasing. This situation requires new organizational concepts in order to satisfy evolutionary market demand. The various design actors, provided with diverse expertise and culture, are therefore invited to collaborate more closely, in order to perform an effective product design. It is then, that the collaborative design process re-groups actors which have to achieve a common objective: develop a product via interactions, information and knowledge sharing, along with a certain level of co-ordination of the various activities. This paper will show how organization and co-ordination of projects are possible, thanks to the use of design environments, which are adapted to each design context. We will focus particularly on the study of various collaborative forms and collaborative knowledge to manage design environments.

The evolution of product requirements in an automotive extended enterprise often involves numerous time consuming interactions between the vehicle manufacturer and their suppliers. It is necessary to manage these interactions and the associated design information in order to ensure transparency such that engineering designers are informed about any changed requirements. One of the avenues currently taken by the automotive industry is the implementation and integration of requirements management into the product development process. This paper will present an electronic requirements management framework that will represent the next step in this digital environment.

An approach for enabling concurrent engineering between companies by providing a proper collaboration platform, as developed in the VIDOP project is proposed. Apart from security, information status is an important element of trust. However, status-coding schemes differ much between companies and are deeply anchored in local engineering culture. An abstract life cycle model that enables comparing and relating different life cycle conventions is presented. A federated PDM architecture is proposed that enables interface with the local PDM systems in a loosely coupled, but yet effective way.

The Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) [] initiative is beginning to move from the conceptual phase to implementation. PLCS is part of the ISO 10303, which is the Standard for Exchange of Product Data. It has recently become an International Standard. The Standard covers a wide range of product design through to in-support activities. An effort to drive the standard forward through a practical implementation is reported here.

An empirical study of the relationship between product architecture and industry structure is discussed. Product architecture is modeled by using Design Structure Matrices (DSMs) representing three different types of intercomponent relationships: technological homogeneity, functional interaction and assembly process contiguity. The DSM models may be used to explain firms’ specialization choices within an industry. Moreover, the same models can provide a rough-cut forecast of the impact that modular and architectural innovation may have on industry structure. The method is then applied to the automotive industry, using empirical data on automotive suppliers located in the province of Turin, in Northwestern Italy.

Cost control in the early phase of the product life cycle became a major competitiveness asset for the companies, due to the world competition. After defining the problems related to these control difficulties, an approach using a concept of cost entity related to the activities of the product to be designed and realized is presented. This approach is applied to the fields of the sand casting foundry. The enterprise modelling difficulties, limits of a global cost modelling and some specifics limitations of the tool used for this development, as well as the limits of a generic approach will be highlighted.

In order to master the constraints of an effective life cycle management, all kinds of data and information concerning the actual machine behavior need to be available. Latest developments in information and communication technologies allow a “look inside” the machine to visualize its actual status. This paper will establish a performance controlling system, including a fleet management system, to gain competitive advantages in manufacturing by focusing on the entire product life cycle.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) as a business strategy is becoming a must not only for big companies but also for small and medium enterprises SME’s that consider product development a core competency. However, a PLM solution deeply impacts the business process and requires the analysis and, if necessary, the re-engineering of the process itself. This paper presents the application of process modeling and simulation techniques for the implementation of a PDM/PLM system within a SME using Total Quality Management procedures to integrate process analysis. Two As-Is models have been realized: the first, extracting the process knowledge from Total Quality Management procedures, and the second, interviewing a company’s staff. A gap analysis has been carried out to identify first, which aspects of the process could be modified and improved introducing a PDM system, and then to forecast a complete extension to the PLM paradigm. A re-engineered process, described by the To-Be model, has been designed and compared with the As-Is models using a discrete events simulator. On the basis of simulation results, considerations have been drawn related both to the new process asset and its future evolution to full implementation of the PLM paradigm.

PLM solutions propose methodologies and tools aiming at improving the product development process and competitive engineering. In particular Engineering Knowledge Management (EKM) has proved to be a key enabler for reducing lifecycle cost and time, improving quality and helping to ensure safe products. Nevertheless the selection of the most proper tools for a given product development process is not a trivial task. The application of a methodology for the selection and evaluation of new PLM technology to be adopted for improving product development processes is presented. The focus of this work is illustrated in two different study cases that apply and test the developed methodology: one belonging to the consumer products sector, the other belonging to the machine tool sector.

The efficiency of the collaboration is a decisive factor for successful product development and production. The processes of the Collaboration Life Cycle should be supported with powerful IT tools to increase efficiency. This paper introduces some concepts of the Collaboration Life Cycle and discusses aspects of collaboration. To overcome the integration problem in product development collaborations standard-based solutions including methodology and tools, which have been achieved in the joint project “PDM Collaborator” are presented. The focus is on the components Collaboration Services and the Federation Services, which create one virtual PDM system that contains all the product data, needed for the collaboration process.