Milosevic, M., Todic, V., Lukic, D.
MODEL DEVELOPMENT OF COLLABORATIVE SYSTEM
FOR PROCESS PLANNING
Abstract: With competition in global markets, more and more enterprises seek to make up virtual enterprise or
cooperate with each other in the manufacturing process in order to reduce cost of product and increase competitive
ability. For this reason, some of the key technologies are developing in the field of collaborative work between
enterprise, besides collaborative design, the collaborative process planning also very important among them. With
process planning collaborative platform engineers whom belong to the different enterprise may be work more
efficiently than before, and the manufacturing resource of virtual enterprise will be utilized more optimized. In this
paper the model of system for process planning in collaborative environment are shown.
Key words: Collaborative systems, PLM, Process planning, CAPP
1. INTRODUCTION
Manufacturers are facing increasing challenges of
better
product
quality
with
tighter
delivery
requirements for customers. Global competition is
increasing with pressure on prices, smaller orders,
shorter life cycles, more suppliers and increasing
material and energy costs. These new business drivers
make
manufacturers
follow
more
competitive
manufacture
model,
such
as
collaborative
manufacturing, to closely collaborate with their
customers, suppliers, manufacturers and partners for
the most advanced competitiveness by leveraging core
competencies throughout the entire product lifecycle.
PLM systems support the management of data for
products, processes and services from initial concept,
through design, engineering, launch, production and
use to final disposal. They coordinate and collaborate
products, project and process information throughout
the entire product value chain among various levels,
internal and external to enterprise. They also support a
product-centric and process-centric solution that unifies
product lifecycle by enabling online sharing of product
and process knowledge and applications [1].
In the age of heterogeneous markets, rapid
expansion of technologies and excessive reductions in
product life cycle, collaborative engineering has been
recognized as a strategy for the total life cycle. This
collaborative engineering is getting more and more
important as manufacturing activities require more
expertise and more involvement from a lot of people on
networks, including design engineers, production
managers, process planners, production engineers,
delivery managers, customers and expert advisors.
2. COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING
The traditional approach to product development
and production is Sequential Engineering , SE. In this
method, works are divided into many sub-tasks, and the
optimization is defined by these task sequences
(Fig. 1).
Design
Evaluation
Process
Planning
Sales,
Delivery
Production
Production
Planning
Design
Information
Part
Information
Products
Production
Plan
Process
Plan
Fig. 1. Product development and production activities
in Sequential Engineering approach
The opposite method is Concurrent Engineering,
CE. It is a systematic approach to the integrated and
concurrent design of products and their related
processes. In the concurrent engineering approach, a
complex, dependent and diverse model is used, and
optimization is determined by task dependency,
organization behavior and uncertainty.
One of the key words in current researches in
concurrent engineering is Co-operation. This co-
operation means Collaboration and it is becoming
more and more important. Consequently, Collaborative
Engineering means co-operating, sharing information
and knowledge of global and multi-company
engineering (Fig. 2) [2].
Design
Production
Process
Planning
Production
Planning
Evaluation
Sales,
Delivery
Sharing Information
and Knowledge
Fig. 2. Product development and production activities
in Collaborative Engineering approach
According to the functions and roles of users
participating in a collaborative design activity, a
collaboration product development system can be
organized in either a ‘horizontal’ or a ‘vertical’ mode.
The horizontal collaboration puts the emphasis on
gathering a design team from the same or different
disciplines to carry out a task systematically.
The vertical collaboration can establish an effective
communication channel between the upstream design
and the downstream manufacturing simulation and
optimization tools, and it can enrich the principles and
methodologies of concurrent engineering to link
diversified engineering tools dynamically. Due to these
different levels of collaboration and interaction
between users, the collaboration can be generally
categorized into three types (Fig. 3):
•
Visualization-based collaboration,
•
Co-design collaboration and
•
CE-based collaboration.
C
o
m
p
le
x
it
y
o
f
en
a
b
li
n
g
t
e
ch
n
o
lo
g
ie
s
Levels of interactions
Fig. 3. Different design processes with different
collaborations [3]
2.1 Visualisation-based collaboration
Visualisation-based collaboration has the advantage
of facilitating collaborative and distributed product or
process preview/review. In such an environment, a
multi-disciplinary team involving a manager, designer,
process planner, customer, etc., can be formed to look
at or review the same visualized design model, which is
often steered by a chief designer or chief planner. To
alleviate the sluggish transfer of large-volume design
models over the Internet, concise 3D formats for Web
applications, such as virtual reality modelling language
(VRML) or Extensible 3D standard (X3D), have been
launched to simplify the models as triangular meshes
for visualisation purposes. Under this collaboration, the
communication can be maintained through either an
asynchronous manner or a synchronous manner.
2.2 Co-design collaboration
Co-design collaboration targets a more interactive
collaboration activity for a conceptual or detailed
design with more complex requirements of co-
ordination and organization among users. Co-design
can
be
conducted
either
asynchronously
or
synchronously.
An
asynchronously
collaborative
Technologies and methodologies for collaborative
product development systems activity can be organized
in a hierarchical assembly structure, through which a
chief designer outlines the assembly configuration and
the detailed component design tasks are assigned to
individual
designers
to
carry
on
separately.
Managements, co-ordination and project review of
tasks, which can be assisted by some advanced project
management or PDM systems, are vital to the whole
process. A synchronous collaborative activity is
conducted in a way such that a group of designers are
dedicated to the same task actively. Teamwork
techniques, such as user commitment, roles and
responsibilities,
are
crucial
to
guarantee
this
simultaneous co-design activity.
2.3
CE-based collaboration
CE-based collaboration extends the CE principle,
which is based on the integration of design and the
related manufacturing processes for a life-cycle
consideration, to support distributed applications, and
geographically dispersed users, systems and resources
can be integrated in an Internet/Intranet environment
beyond the traditional boundaries of physical and time
zones. In a CE-based collaborative system, product
design systems and some evaluation or simulation
service tools diversified in terms of functionalities,
communication protocols, programming languages and
data structure representations are integrated as a multi-
disciplinary environment for optimizing design. In such
a system, application services in product design,
process planning, engineering analysis and simulation,
can be conveniently embedded as Application Service
Providers
(ASPs)
for
remote
invoking
and
manipulation.
2.4 Product lifecycle collaboration
As such, a new technology solution, called,
‘‘product
lifecycle
collaboration’’,
is
required.
Functions of to enable product lifecycle collaboration
include, but not limited to (Fig. 4) [1]:
•
Product portfolio management,
•
Collaborative product customization,
•
Collaborative product development,
•
Collaborative product manufacturing,
•
Collaborative component supply and
•
Extended product service.
