A reconfigurable platform in support of one-of-a-kind product development

In recent years, a variety of Internet-based systems has been developed for the purpose of Rapid One-of-a-Kind or customized Product Development (ROKPD). They can be applied in different stages of the product development process such as to rapidly capture customer requirements, and help produce high-quality products at low cost and short lead-time. Many of the systems, however, do not support rapid adaptation or dynamic reconfiguration of systems and tools for supporting ROKPD in a distributed manufacturing environment. To the authors’ knowledge, the infrastructure of such a reconfigurable platform for supporting distributed manufacturing has never been directly studied. This paper proposes an Internet-based reconfigurable ROKP platform that has been prototyped to serve as a substrate for integrating innovative tools and systems for One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) companies in New Zealand. The main emphasis of this paper is to investigate how to build the Internet-based reconfigurable ROKPD platform and to design appropriate intelligent tools and systems for the purpose of rapidly and economically producing OKP products in the global environment. A number of recent developments are discussed, including the four open-domain infrastructure of the ROKPD platform, Internet-based data management systems, an integrated product data environment and a cost/lead time control tool.