An integration framework for product lifecycle management

The need for integrating business and technical information systems, allowing partners to collaborate effectively in creating innovative products, has motivated the design and deployment of a novel integration framework for product lifecycle management. The time is ripe for such an integration framework because of the convergence of three important developments, almost in a perfect storm: (1) maturity of standardized product data and meta-data models, and standardized engineering and business processes; (2) emergence of service-oriented architecture for information sharing; and (3) availability of robust middleware to implement them. These developments allow engineering and business objects and processes to be built or composed as modular pieces of software in the form of services that can communicate with each other and be used across different parts of a business. These modular software pieces can be reused and reconfigured in new ways as business conditions change, thereby saving time and money for companies. This paper describes the business and technical aspects of an integration framework for product lifecycle management using open standards and service-oriented architecture.     

Product relationships management enabler for concurrent engineering and product lifecycle management

The current competitive industrial context requires more flexible, intelligent and compact product lifecycles, especially in the product development process where several lifecycle issues have to be considered, so as to deliver lifecycle oriented products. This paper describes the application of a novel product relationships management approach, in the context of product lifecycle management (PLM), enabling concurrent product design and assembly sequence planning. Previous work has provided a foundation through a theoretical framework, enhanced by the paradigm of product relational design and management. This statement therefore highlights the concurrent and proactive aspect of assembly oriented design vision. Central to this approach is the establishment and implementation of a complex and multiple viewpoints of product development addressing various stakeholders design and assembly planning points of view. By establishing such comprehensive relationships and identifying related relationships among several lifecycle phases, it is then possible to undertake the product design and assembly phases concurrently. Specifically, the proposed work and its application enable the management of product relationship information at the interface of product-process data management techniques. Based on the theory, models and techniques such as described in previous work, the implementation of a new hub application called PEGASUS is then described. Also based on web service technology, PEGASUS can be considered as a mediator application and/or an enabler for PLM that externalises product relationships and enables the control of information flow with internal regulation procedures. The feasibility of the approach is justified and the associated benefits are reported with a mechanical assembly as a case study.     

P2P Data synchronization for product lifecycle management

Intelligent products are an undeniable asset for efficient product lifecycle management (PLM), providing ways to capture events related to physical objects at various locations and times. Today and more than ever before, PLM tools and systems must be built upon standards for enhancing interoperability among all product stakeholders and developing tools independent of specific vendors, applications, and operating systems. Based on this observation, this paper develops strategies to improve “information sustainability” in PLM environments using standardized communication interfaces defined by a recent standard proposal named quantum lifecycle management (QLM) messaging standards. More concretely, data synchronization models based upon QLM standards are developed to enable the synchronization of product-related information among various systems, networks, and organizations involved throughout the product lifecycle. Our proposals are implemented and assessed based on two distinct platforms defined in the healthcare and home automation sectors.     

产品全生命周期管理平台的集成产品开发流程实现研究

在研究集成产品开发框架的流程元素和集成产品信息模型的基础上,运用产品全生命周期管理(PLM)相关技术,提出基于PLM平台的集成产品开发流程实现模式,并通过某大型企业的实例应用验证该模式的可行性。     

Industrial blockchain based framework for product lifecycle management in industry 4.0

Product lifecycle management (PLM) aims to seamlessly manage all products and information and knowledge generated throughout the product lifecycle for achieving business competitiveness. Conventionally, PLM is implemented based on standalone and centralized systems provided by software vendors. The information of PLM is hardly to be integrated and shared among the cooperating parties. It is difficult to meet the requirements of the openness, interoperability and decentralization of the Industry 4.0 era. To address these challenges, this paper proposed an industrial blockchain-based PLM framework to facilitate the data exchange and service sharing in the product lifecycle. Firstly, we proposed the concept of industrial blockchain as the use of blockchain technology in the industry with the integration of IoT, M2M, and efficient consensus algorithms. It provided an open but secured information storage and exchange platform for the multiple stakeholders to achieve the openness, interoperability and decentralization in era of industry 4.0. Secondly, we proposed and developed customized blockchain information service to fulfill the connection between a single node with the blockchain network. As a middleware, it can not only process the multi-source and heterogeneous data from varied stages in the product lifecycle, but also broadcast the processed data to the blockchain network. Moreover, smart contract is used to automate the alert services in the product lifecycles. Finally, we illustrated the blockchain-based application between the cooperating partners in four emerging product lifecycle stages, including co-design and co-creation, quick and accurate tracking and tracing, proactive maintenance, and regulated recycling. A simulation experiment demonstrated the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed framework. The results showed that the proposed framework is scalable and efficient, and hence it is feasible to be adopted in industry. With the successful development of the proposed platform, it is promising to provide an effective PLM for improving interoperability and cooperation between stakeholders in the entire product lifecycle.     

Modeling workflow activities for collaborative process planning with product lifecycle management tools

Process planning activities are critical in manu- facturing distributed environments where different companies need to collaborate in product development. In this work, we propose a workflow model for a collaborative process planning environment in which original equipment manufacturer and suppliers companies interact with the help of Product Lifecycle Management and CAD/CAM tools. The proposed workflow model establishes the different activities, the information flows and the different stages that must be followed by all the participants. A pilot implementation has been made in order to validate the model in a realistic industrial scenario.     

Shape-based searching for product lifecycle applications

Estimates suggest that more than 75% of engineering design activity comprises reuse of previous design knowledge to address a new design problem. Reusing design knowledge has great potential to improve product quality, shorten lead time, and reduce cost. However, PLM systems, which address the issue of reuse by searching for keywords in filenames, part numbers or context attached to CAD models, do not provide a robust tool to search reusable knowledge. This paper presents a brief overview of a novel approach to search for 3D models. The system is built on a client-server-database architecture. The client takes in the query input from the user along with his search preferences and passes it to the server. The server converts the shape input into feature vectors and a unique skeletal graph representation. Details of the algorithms to perform these steps are presented here. Principal advantages of our graph representation are: (i) it preserves geometry and topology of the query model, (ii) it is considerably smaller than the B-Rep graph, and (iii) it is insensitive to minor perturbations in shape, but sensitive enough to capture the major features of a shape. The combined distance of feature vectors and skeletal graphs in the database provide an indirect measure of shape similarity between models. Critical database issues such as search system efficiency, semantic gap reduction and the subjectivity of the similarity definition are addressed. This paper reports our initial results in designing, implementing and running the shape search system.     

Modeling framework for product lifecycle information

This paper presents a modeling framework for product lifecycle information. Although being widely used in enterprises’ virtual product data management, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are unable to manage the modeling and simulation aspects of virtual products. To reinforce the sharing and management of the product lifecycle information, especially the simulation data, a product’s four-dimensional (4D) view model (PLIM) is established, which includes geometry view, task view, virtual prototype system view and lifecycle view. To provide efficient and effective simulation information, the prototype system view is then studied in detail. Finally, to validate the feasibility of the modeling framework, a prototype system is developed based on an application example, with the demonstration of 4D product lifecycle information model (PLIM).     

Bridging the gap between product lifecycle management and sustainability in manufacturing through ontology building

Green manufacturing has been a major concern in recent years. As product lifecycle management strategies embrace sustainability within its spectrum of multi-disciplinary efforts, it has become crucial that manufacturing companies have the ability to exchange product and process related data with emphasis on sustainability not only amongst its internal information systems like CAD, CAPP and ERP, but also throughout their supply chain and other stakeholders. Industry demands solutions for interoperability between heterogeneous systems that can account for the necessary semantics in order to establish seamless, unambiguous information sharing of data from a product's cradle to its grave. One of the most promising approaches to overcome these issues is the use of ontologies that serve as interlingua, for translating between local data structures. The present research proposes an ontology that relates sustainability terms to product and process data entities through semantic ties.     

Information sharing and exchange in the context of product lifecycle management: Role of standards

This paper introduces a model of the information flows in Product Life cycle Management (PLM), serving as the basis for understanding the role of standards in PLM support systems. Support of PLM requires a set of complementary and interoperable standards that cover the full range of aspects of the products’ life cycle. The paper identifies a typology of standards relevant to PLM support that addresses the hierarchy of existing and evolving standards and their usage and identifies a suite of standards supporting the exchange of product, process, operations and supply chain information. A case study illustrating the use of PLM standards in a large organization is presented. The potential role of harmonization among PLM support standards is described and a proposal is made for using open standards and open source models for this important activity.     

A product lifecycle management methodology for supporting knowledge reuse in the consumer packaged goods domain

The present globalized market is forcing many companies to invest in new strategies and tools for supporting knowledge management. This aspect is becoming a key factor in the industrial competitiveness for the presence of extended enterprises that normally deal with huge data exchange and share processes. This scenario is due to the presence of partners geographically distributed over the entire globe, that participate in different steps of the product lifecycle (product development, maintenance and recycling). At present, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) seems to be the appropriate solution to support enterprises in this complex scenario, even though a real standardized approach for the implementation of knowledge sharing and management tools does not exist today. For this reason, the aim of this paper is to develop a knowledge management operative methodology able to support the formalization and the reuse of the enterprise expertise acquired while working on previous products. By focusing on consumer packaged goods enterprises and on the concept development phase (which is one of the most knowledge intensive phases of the whole product lifecycle), this research work has developed a new systematic methodology to support knowledge codification and knowledge management operations. The new methodology integrates the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and the Teoriya Resheniya Izobreatatelskikh Zadatch (TRIZ). Also, a case study on the problem of waste disposal has been conducted to validate the proposed methodology.     

基于Teamcenter的机车车辆PLM系统的应用

产品全生命周期管理（PLM）作为一种综合技术,是企业信息化的重要组成部分,Teamcen-ter是架构成熟、功能全面的一体化PLM解决方案。Teamcenter是基于一个单一的、开放的、SOA体系构架,易于扩展,Teamcenter支持并行设计。基于Teamcenter的全生命周期管理软件应用到机车车辆企业,有效缩短了研发周期,提高了产品质量。     

Policy lifecycle model for systems management

In an enterprise, policies are the glue that hold network and systems management activities, tools, managed resources, and process participants together. Nevertheless, gaps between management objectives, policy definitions, and policy enforcement are inevitable during policy deployment. Policy definitions will rarely satisfy all management requirements and can be difficult to understand and enforce. Moreover, system administrators often ignore or circumvent policies intentionally or unintentionally in daily management activities. Policy-based management offers a promising solution to the problem of managing complex systems. It provides a means by which to simplify and largely automate the management procedure. These authors propose a policy lifecycle model, based on proven software development procedures; it can guide the deployment of a policy-based information management system in an enterprise.     

Development of a mechanism for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge integration

Compared with relying on the efforts of various enterprises collaborating on product lifecycle activities, such as coordination, communication and control, the ability to effectively share product information and knowledge is more important. Therefore, how to best integrate such heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among various cooperating enterprises has become an extremely important knowledge management subjects associated with collaborative product lifecycle.This study develops a novel mechanism for integrating ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge to effectively integrate the heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among different enterprises during a product’s lifecycle, thereby facilitating sharing of this product knowledge. This study: (i) designed an integration and sharing process for collaborative product lifecycle knowledge, (ii) developed techniques associated with integration of ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, and (iii) implemented an integration and sharing mechanism for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge. In developing techniques associated with integration of ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, which involves establishing a product lifecycle ontology, designing local ontology schema, designing an integration algorithm for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, and designing a searching method for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge.     

面向全生命周期的服务制造网络建模研究*

服务型制造是企业间通过相互服务实现协同和创新,企业间的相互服务聚集成了复杂的网络关系。如何描述和分析这种关系是研究维护并优化协同制造关系的前提。针对服务型制造发展的需要,提出了面向全生命周期的服务制造网络建模方法。首先深入分析了服务型制造网络的概念和特点以及产品与服务的关系;然后根据产品BOM建立了满足服务制造的BOM,在此基础上,构建了设计、制造、维护三种基本形态的全生命周期的服务型制造网络模型。     

基于租用的移动Agent生命周期管理策略

将实际生活中的租用机制引入到移动Agent生命周期管理之中,使得移动Agent和其运行环境之间形成一种租用关系,从而在不改变移动Agent自身行为特性的情况下,使得移动Agent系统可以通过有限的租用期限柔性地管理移动Agent生命周期。这种机制使得运行在开放环境下的移动Agent系统具有自愈合、自管理的特点,并在一定程度上增强了移动Agent系统的容错性和安全性。文中利用UML描述了租用模型与相关实现技术,并给出了基于租用的移动Agent生命周期管理的算法。最后通过应用实例证明了此方法是通用的与可行的。