Application of OLAP to a PDM database for interactive performance evaluation of in-progress product development

This paper applies online analytic processing (OLAP), a widely accepted database analysis technique, to a product data management (PDM) database to evaluate the performance of in-progress product development. This paper introduces a set of processing key performance indicators (KPIs) that can measure ongoing product development. To convert and analyze operational data in a PDM database with interactive OLAP operations, this study proposes a multidimensional data model specified by product facts with associated dimensions. The model is implemented using a commercial OLAP engine, and applied to a database supported by a prototype PDM system. The OLAP engine allows analysts to interactively evaluate the performance of in-progress product development in a multidimensional data space. This is a far more flexible and efficient approach than other result-oriented static evaluation approaches.     

A novel change feature-based approach to predict the impact of current proposed engineering change

The past engineering change (EC) knowledge can be reused to evaluate the impact of current proposed EC, which is gradually accepted as an effective strategy for engineers to handle EC businesses in enterprises. However, the existing approaches to evaluate EC impact are still time-consuming and complex. So this paper proposes a novel change feature-based approach to predict the impact of current proposed EC. Firstly, the related concepts of change feature are defined. Secondly, the working flow of proposed approach is introduced. Afterwards, a mathematical model is constructed for the prediction of EC impact. Finally, an application case verifies the feasibility of the proposed approach, and the evaluation against two state-of-the-art approaches (namely Mehta’s approach and k-Nearest Neighbor approach) has been done. The results of evaluation show that our approach is better than the two approaches in terms of three indexes: (a) the success rate of prediction, (b) the time of prediction, and (c) the loss function.     

A step toward STEP-compatible engineering data management: the data models of product structure and engineering changes

In an iterative design process, there is a large amount of engineering data to be processed. Well-managed engineering data can ensure the competitiveness of companies in the competitive market. It has been recognized that a product data model is the basis for establishing engineering database. To fully support the complete product data representation in its life cycle, an international product data representation and exchange standard, STEP, is applied to model the representation of a product. In this paper, the architecture of an engineering data management (EDM) system is described, which consists of an integrated product database. There are six STEP-compatible data models constructed to demonstrate the integratibility of EDM system using common data modeling format. These data models are product definition, product structure, shape representation, engineering change, approval, and production scheduling. These data models are defined according to the integrated resources of STEP/ISO 10303 (Parts 41-44), which support a complete product information representation and a standard data format. Thus, application systems, such as CAD/CAM and MRP systems, can interact with the EDM system by accessing the database based on the STEP data exchange standard.     

An industry approach to shared, cross-organisational engineering change handling - The road towards standards for product data processing

Standards for cross-enterprise communication between systems that actively manage product data and which control the associated workflows–including release and approval processes–have been in industrial use for some time. Experiences gained during the last decade showed that purely data centric approaches, such as supported by IGES, ISO 10303 (STEP) and IFC are not sufficient. Cross-enterprise communication requires not only agreements about data format and semantics, but also about orderly procedures for efficient communication between the stakeholders in a workflow.This paper presents the background and approach taken for the development of a standard for cross-company engineering change management (ECM), which is currently undertaken as a joint activity between VDA (German Association of the Automotive Industry) and ProSTEP iViP (international association for information integration in industry). Based on the results of this joint activity, which was recently published as SASIG ECM Recommendation V2.0 and as VDA 4965 V3.0, ECM Pilot implementations within member companies were conducted. They proved that a lead-time reduction of the engineering change process of 20%–40% is possible while the quality of the process increases. The approach itself should work not only in engineering change or product data environments, but also in document oriented environments as well as in sectors other than automotive.The ECM standard provides specifications of reference business processes, including the definition of the participants’ roles and the interaction and synchronization (“touch”) points where data are communicated. It leverages and builds on other established product data standards wherever possible. Thus, the data model defined by STEP AP214, (Core Data for automotive mechanical design processes) is used to describe the “payload”–i.e. the product data content to be exchanged–at defined synchronization points. OMG’s PLM Services provide the framework for sending messages between the stakeholders of an Engineering Change, and business process modelling languages such as e.g. BPEL (Business Process Execution Language), standardized by OASIS, provide the capability to execute the ECM protocol’s specification. They ensure the ability to use the latest state-of-the-art internet technologies such as XML and web-services.     

Distribution and synchronisation of engineering information using active database technology

Today, work collaboration is normal practice in developing modern products. Engineering collaborative work involves a number of team members that need to share and exchange design ideas while working with engineering analysis tools such as mechanical computer aided engineering systems. This work presents the M-Sync prototype system that uses an active database approach to enable exchange of engineering information among distributed team members in a timely manner. The distributed data is fully accessible by the local member and is automatically synchronised between different places using a database management system that support event-condition-action (ECA) database rules. Only updates introduced at one location are distributed to other locations, thereby minimizing information transfer and enhancing performance. Members working at different locations can therefore work in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner and interactively manipulate the same set of information at the same time.     

Towards an automatic engineering change management in smart product-service systems – A DSM-based learning approach

The rapid development and implementation of smart, connected products (SCPs) in the engineering field has triggered a promising manufacturing paradigm of servitization, i.e. smart product-service systems (Smart PSS). As a complex solution bundle in both system and product level, its engineering change management differs from the existing ones mainly in two aspects. Firstly, massive in-context stakeholder-generated/product-sensed data during usage stage can be leveraged to enable its success in a data-driven manner. Secondly, the digitalized services, consisting of both hardware and software solutions, can also be changed in a more flexible way other than the physical components alone. Nevertheless, scarcely any work reports on how to conduct engineering change in such context, let alone a systematic approach to support the automatic generation of its change prediction or recommendation. Aiming to fill these gaps, this work proposes an occurrence-based design structure matrix (DSM) approach together with a three-way based cost-sensitive learning approach for automatic engineering change management in the Smart PSS environment. This informatics-based research, as an explorative study, overcomes the subjectivity and tedious assessment of the experts in the conventional approaches, and can offer useful guidelines to the manufacturing companies for managing their engineering changes for product-service innovation process.     

产品数据管理中的工程变更管理的建模与实现

建立在产品数据管理系统基础上的工程变更管理是指管理处于预发布和发布生命周期状态的产品数据。本文在Windchill的基础上建立了面向对象的工程变更管理模型，实现了基于产品数据之间关联关系的配套更改检查，提出了变更对象间的同步机制，并给出了在某大型制造企业的应用实例。     

复杂产品虚拟样机数据管理研究

解决了复杂虚拟样机涉及的数据量大、人员分布广等问题,提出将产品数据管理运用到虚拟机床系统中的重要性.首先对虚拟样机,虚拟开发系统及产品数据管理做了概述.之后结合复杂产品虚拟样机的特点,总结出作为其支撑平台的产品数据管理系统所要具备的要求,针对这些要求重点研究了PDM系统的功能结构树.在对系统结构和功能分析的基础上,认为基于CORBA和Web的产品数据管理是适应复杂虚拟样机特点的有效手段,最后对其实现的技术路线进行了探索.     

数据挖掘在防范金融风险中的研究及应用

如何有效地利用和处理大量的数据已成为当今世界共同关心的问题。随着数据库技术、人工智能、数理统计和并行计算等技术的发展与融合,数据挖掘技术应运而生。建立集中的数据仓库存贮,定期采集的联机业务数据．日常管理业务数据和外部数据,提供查询,联机分析,和数据挖掘等多种工具,为金融界分析研究宏观市场环境,竞争对手,客户,产品和服务渠道提供智能化管理分析系统和决策辅助手段。同时,该系统的实现对于防范和打击金融风险活动,也具有重要的现实意义。     

Modeling of transdisciplinary engineering assets using the design platform approach for improved customization ability

Original equipment suppliers (OES) that develop unique products are continuously faced with changing requirements during both the quotation and product development processes. This challenge is a different reality from companies that develop off-the-shelf products for the end consumer, which use fixed specifications and where product platforms have been a strong enabler for efficient mass customization. However, product platforms cannot adequately support companies working as OES. The reason is that a high level of customization is required which means that interfaces cannot be standardized, the performance is not negotiable, requirements are not initially fixed, and the specific system interacts with, is affected by, or affects other systems that are simultaneously developed in a transdisciplinary environment. The design platform (DP) approach provides a coherent environment for heterogeneous and transdisciplinary design resources to be used in product development by supporting both designing and off-the-shelf solutions. This research describes the introduction, application and further development of the DP approach at an automotive supplier to support the development of customized solutions when traditional modularity or platform scalability do not suffice. A computer tool called Design Platform Manager has been developed to support the creation and visualization of the DP. The support tool has a connection to a product data management database to link the platform model to the various kinds of engineering assets needed or intended to support variant creation. Finally, the support tool was evaluated by the case company representatives showing promising results.     

A Product Data Management architecture for integrating hardware and software development

This paper proposes an architecture of Product Data Management (PDM) for integrating Software Configuration Management (SCM). The proposed architecture extends its data model to support version items for SCM. Its applications support both PDM and SCM functionalities, as well as integrate hardware parts and software items in product configurations and engineering change management. The architecture is implemented by using a commercial Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system. The implementation enables hardware engineers and software programmers to share the same user environment, on a consistent database during the collaborative product development.     

Ontology-based data integration and decision support for product e-Design

Currently, computer-based support tools are widely used to facilitate the design process and have the potential to reduce design time, decrease product cost and enhance product quality. Although there are promising information systems to manage product lifecycle and product-related data, including product data management (PDM) and product lifecycle management (PLM), significant limitations still exist, where information required to make decisions may not be available, may be lacking consistency, and may not be expressed in a general way for sharing between systems. Moreover, there remains little support for decision making that considers multiple complex technical and economical criteria, relations, and objectives in product design. To address these problems, this paper presents a framework for an ontology-based data integration and decision support environment for e-Design. The framework can guide designers in the design process, can make recommendations, and can provide decision support for parameter adjustments.     

Data-driven engineering design: A systematic review using scientometric approach

In the last two decades, data regarding engineering design and product development has increased rapidly. Big data exploration and mining offer numerous opportunities for engineering design; however, owing to the multitude of data sources and formats coupled with the high complexity of the design process, these techniques are yet to be utilised to the best of their full potential. In this study, a comprehensive assessment of the state-of-the-art data-driven engineering design (DDED) in the last 20 years was conducted. A scientometric approach was employed wherein first, a systematic article acquisition procedure was performed, where a dataset of 3339 articles related to engineering design and big data analytics applications were extracted from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. Thereafter, this dataset was reduced to a dataset of 366 articles based on concise data screening. The resulting articles were used to analyse the dynamics of research in DDED throughout the last 20 years and to detect the primary research topics related to DDED, the most influential authors, and the papers with the highest impact in the DDED domain. Furthermore, the co-occurrence network of keywords/keyphrases and co-authorship networks were constructed and analysed to reveal the interconnection of the research topics and the collaboration between the most prolific authors. Finally, an insight how big data analytics is being applied through product development activities to support decision-making in engineering design was presented.     

A structured methodology for implementing engineering data management

One of the most significant positive effects on product and process development in recent years has been the application of data management techniques. Engineering data management or product data management is the most promising one. The implementation of engineering data management is heavily dependent on the engineering process and involves the technologies of management, engineering, and information. However, as there is no commonly acceptable approach and methodologies for implementing engineering data management, it’s implementation becomes a bottleneck.This paper presents a structured methodology for the implementation of engineering data management. The approach consists of a series of steps, from business and engineering process analysis, modeling and reengineering, through system design and modeling, to system realization.This research will facilitate engineering process improvement and the planning, design and implementation of engineering data management. Consequently, it will help increase product development capability and quality, reduce development cycle time and cost, and hence increase product marketability.     

Modeling evolving product data for concurrent engineering

In order to make the traditional product structure tree representation amenable to concurrent engineering relationships likeperspective-of anddependent-on have to be added to the essentialpart-of relationship. Complex data can be held in proprietary formats, while simple data will be in a common representation for direct access by diverse disciplines. Coordination among team members in a project can be carried out using such a model. Besides, a virtually unified view of all the data is possible, though they may lie in distributed and heterogeneous data bases. A very necessary characteristic of such a model is that its time evolution should be easy to represent in order to reflect the dynamic nature of product development, where the model itself, and not merely the data values change. Managing versions is also facilitated by the comprehensive structure of the Unified Product Data Model (UPDM).     

Analyzing engineering change of aircraft assembly tooling considering both duration and resource consumption

Aircraft assembly tooling is developed according to the constraints of geometric information and technical requirements of aircraft, and frequent aircraft changes can cause assembly tooling tasks to change frequently. Assembly tooling parts are large in amount and complex in structure. Due to the complex dependencies among the tasks of assembly tooling, change in one task can cause changes to many other tasks, which may require much time and resources to completely resolve them. However, long cycle and mass resource consumption for the engineering change would normally lead to high risk, high cost, high rework, and so on. The primary result of this work is the provision of a development support to find the optimal solution of assembly tooling change by examining the combined effects of duration and resource consumption. In this paper, engineering change progression of assembly tooling is modeled as a decrease of impact on affected tasks, which implies that the duration of certain changed task reduces gradually. Besides, a deterministic simulation model is developed to analyze the change propagation schemes. The model explores the combined effects of task parallelism, resource constraints and change propagation during the engineering change process of assembly tooling. Finally, a case study of an assembly tooling for the reinforced frame module is implemented and the analysis results suggest that the proposed method offers a valuable basis for providing targeted guidance on how to obtain the optimal engineering change scheme of assembly tooling.     

Development of a web-based system for engineering change management

Engineering changes (ECs) are changes and/or modifications in forms, fits, functions, materials, dimensions, etc., of products and constituent components. ECs usually induce a series of downstream changes. Multiple disciplines and responsibilities are therefore involved in managing ECs. Previous investigations conducted by the authors and other researchers have shown that paper-based and standalone computerised EC management (ECM) systems have limited support for such intensive teamwork and close communication. This paper proposes to establish a web-based framework that supports ECM procedures and activities. A web-based ECM system is able to provide better information sharing, simultaneous data access and processing and more prompt communication and feedback. The amount of paperwork and the throughput time of managing ECs are significantly reduced while the effectiveness and the efficiency are substantially improved. This paper focuses on discussing the issues of design, development, and implementation of this prototype web-based ECM system.     

Expanding bottleneck management from manufacturing to product design and engineering processes

Bottlenecks inhibit the performance of companies. Up to now, bottleneck management research has concentrated on manufacturing processes, while neglecting product design and engineering processes. This research fills this gap through developing and testing of a new bottleneck management concept for product design and engineering processes. The new concept is developed using a system theory modelling approach and comprises of four bottleneck management counter measures. Two propositions were developed to test the concept through an event-discrete simulation model. The simulation is grounded on empirical data from three design-driven companies and tests the impact of the four bottleneck management counter measures on the performance of product design and engineering processes. The findings from the simulation confirm the applicability of the newly developed bottleneck concept to improve the performance of product design and engineering processes. In doing so, this research study expands bottleneck management for the first time from manufacturing to product design and engineering processes.