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To meet the fast-change market, products have to be improved continuously through design change processes. The design change process is the most frequent activity in its life cycle. When a change for a design is initiated, its related components need to be changed and that results in the changes of other related components. This starts a chain reaction. The product data usually include the data that may be generated throughout its life cycle, such as the design chart, manufacturing/production information, user¡¦s information, etc. The data formats varied at each stage of the product and its amount is too large for a simple database to handle. We need a system to manage these data which is called a Product Data Management¡]PDM¡^system. When a chain reaction occurs, it may cause a series changes among enterprises. We need a method to constrain the affected domain, and provide necessary data to proceed the change process. In this research, we are dealing with the design change issues by sharing product information stored in PDM systems. The purpose of this research is to construct a product data-sharing framework so that design change process can be carried out through the computer network. A product data search engine¡]PDES¡^will be used as the core of this framework. The PDES consists of several algorithms and assembly rules. The major function of the PDES is to find out proper parts, and then get their data through the network to meet the design change requirements. The design change processes are usually result in decision-making problems caused by distributed data and inconsistency of data formats. These problems can be solved by the proposed framework. The configurations of a personal computer and a bicycle are used as examples to demonstrate the analysis and modeling procedures.

A engenharia simultânea e os sistemas de gerenciamento de dados de produto(PDM), apesar de serem uma ajuda preciosa para que as empresas enfrentem as novas condições de sobrevivência no mercado atual, não são muito conhecidos. Além disso, existem poucos trabalhos científicos relacionados à implantação e ao auxílio deste tipo sistema no gerenciamento de dados em ambiente de engenharia simultânea. Neste trabalho procura-se levantar, segundo a bibliografia, as necessidades de gerenciamento de dados em ambientes de engenharia simultânea, comparar as necessidades de gerenciamento de dados encontradas na bibliografia com as necessidades de um caso de implantação real, levantar quais funcionalidades de sistemas PDM (product data management) suprem as necessidades encontradas, e caracterizar um projeto de implantação real de um sistema PDM em um ambiente de engenharia simultânea. / The concurrent engineering and the product data management systems(PDM), although being a precious aid to allow the companies to face the new survival conditions in the current market, are not very well-known. Besides that, few scientific works related to the implementation of this kind of system and their usage in the data management of data in a concurrent engineering environment are available. The objectives of this work are: to rise, according to the bibliography, the needs of data management in a concurrent engineering environment, to compare those needs with the ones of a real implementation case, to rise which functionality of PDM (Product Data Management) systems supply the founded needs, and to characterize a project of a real PDM system implementation in an environment of concurrent engineering.

A engenharia simultânea e os sistemas de gerenciamento de dados de produto(PDM), apesar de serem uma ajuda preciosa para que as empresas enfrentem as novas condições de sobrevivência no mercado atual, não são muito conhecidos. Além disso, existem poucos trabalhos científicos relacionados à implantação e ao auxílio deste tipo sistema no gerenciamento de dados em ambiente de engenharia simultânea. Neste trabalho procura-se levantar, segundo a bibliografia, as necessidades de gerenciamento de dados em ambientes de engenharia simultânea, comparar as necessidades de gerenciamento de dados encontradas na bibliografia com as necessidades de um caso de implantação real, levantar quais funcionalidades de sistemas PDM (product data management) suprem as necessidades encontradas, e caracterizar um projeto de implantação real de um sistema PDM em um ambiente de engenharia simultânea. / The concurrent engineering and the product data management systems(PDM), although being a precious aid to allow the companies to face the new survival conditions in the current market, are not very well-known. Besides that, few scientific works related to the implementation of this kind of system and their usage in the data management of data in a concurrent engineering environment are available. The objectives of this work are: to rise, according to the bibliography, the needs of data management in a concurrent engineering environment, to compare those needs with the ones of a real implementation case, to rise which functionality of PDM (Product Data Management) systems supply the founded needs, and to characterize a project of a real PDM system implementation in an environment of concurrent engineering.

The product development today handles increasingly complex products and to be able to compete on the current market companies need an effective PLM/PDM system to manage the lifecycle, models, and data connected to their products. Three of the factors for success in product development are time, cost, and quality. Which need to be supported by the processes and tool used in a project. Product development often uses both physical and analytical prototypes. The analytical method of simulation is an important element in product development that has started to shift from being a validation and verification tool at the last stages in the development process to be more included in the early stages. Simulation models often generate a big amount of data and because of this, the storing and management of them can be troublesome. Therefore, there is a need to have closer integration between design and simulation. The purpose of the thesis is to do an inquiry about what a PLM system contributes to in a company regarding their product development and why and how simulation models can be connected to the company’s PDM system.The methods used during the study were literature reviews, interviews, workshops, and a survey. The results show that in the literature the benefits of using a PLM and PDM system are connected to the factors for a successful product development which are time, quality and cost. While the employees think traceability, reuse of data and storing is the most important benefits. Simulation models are beneficial to the product development process and should, therefore, be stored in a way that there is a connection between the simulation model and the design model. For the employees, the highest-ranking benefits with adding simulation models to the system are traceability, reuse of simulation models and control over simulation models. A manual for how the simulation engineer can utilize the system and add simulation models to it are presented.

The management of information is one of the key aspects within a successful andefficient product development process, particularly regarding complex products.Scania CV AB is at the moment developing a new IT-system, OAS, which aims tomanage the company’s product data. With this as a background, the purpose of thismaster thesis is to identify the cross-functional user needs within Scania’s organizationconcerning product data and the management around it. To fulfill the purpose, an empirical study consisting of 40 personal interviews with 50representatives from different functions within Scania’s organization was carriedthrough. The empirical data was then analyzed focusing on identifying thecross-functional needs and issues. The study points out that there is a big potential regarding improvement among themanagement of product data. For example, a lot of time is spent by the users to findthe requested information and to copy data manually from one IT-system to another.The most important findings, in terms of cross-functional user needs within Scania’sorganization, are the integration of Scania’s many IT-system and to make informationmore accessible. Further needs are regarding the ability to follow a product’s entirelifecycle, better support for the user’s understanding of the complex product, anenhanced management of Engineering Change Orders and a better supportconcerning the product structure.

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Product development companies are continually seeking methods to increase efficiency while maintaining quality. Distributed development is also more important than ever before as industries globalize. These forces have driven firms to adopt formal data management practices that allow groups and individuals to work from singular, centralized data source that are secure, reliable, and support collaboration. This thesis proposes a methodology to leverage globalized infrastructures for the efficient storage of product variations. The methodology is proved through a working prototype using the market leader in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, Teamcenter Engineering. First, paradigms are set forth for the storage of various types of engineering documents in PLM systems in parametric formats. Then the use of these paradigms is exemplified by various programs retrieving and storing document variations in the form of PLM metadata. Finally, the results show that this methodology produces drastic increases in system performance as well as the enabling of PLM-compatible automation and optimization. The impacts of these findings have significant implications for industry and has generated interest from several global engineering firms and academic journals.

The research work detailed in this dissertation relates to the computer representation of information which concerns product families and product platforms. Common to competitive companies today, is the quest of designing products and processes to meet a large variety of customer needs, in short time, and based on few resources. One way to succeed with this endeavor is to plan for the variety and design a modular, or adaptive, product family based on a common platform of resources. To further increase the efficiency in delivering customized products in time, a computer processible model of the family is created, which is used to realize a customer specific product variant during the order phase. The objective of this research is to define a generally applicable model of product family information for the purpose of supporting various applications, and for achieving an efficient utilization of information. The approach is to define a model of the product family according to the theory of Axiomatic Design, which reflects the trace from various requirements to functions and different properties and components of the product. By representing information from design in a generally applicable format, this information can be reused when building the configuration models of the order phase. By adapting the model to an existing standard, information exchange between systems is supported, and access is provided to information concerning detailed physical parts as well as constructs addressing various use and version management. Contributions include a description of a model architecture with reusable functional solutions, interfaces, structures and interrelations between platform solutions and product family. Further, it is described how to extend and model the domains and interrelations of axiomatic design in an information model, which is adapted to the product modeling standard of ISO10303-214. / QC 20100812

In recent years, due to severe global market competition, increase of manpower costs and decrease in foreign trade, plus low-price labor costs from China and southeastern Asia countries (eg. Vietnam), all these factors enforce Taiwan manufacturing, such as motorcycle industry, moving their production factories to those countries. This phenomenon has been brought to Taiwan government¡¦s attention, and this crisis has encouraged our industrial circles to develop higher-level R&D and design center. Furthermore, the official department (eg. Industrial Development Bureau) also supplies enterprises with expenses support to conduct R&D and design. Within New Product Development (NPD) is one of the major subsidiary entries. Take Taiwan motorcycle industry as an example. To develop NPD is an essential competitive strategy for enterprise. On the one hand, this strategy has helped Taiwan motorcycle industry to be independent of technical domination from Japan; on the other hand, it has created differentiation in motorcycle industry and consolidated the foundation marching into international market. This is also what internal manufacture enterprises strive for. NPD process involves several stages. For example, in 1994 Cooper brought up product composition, initial evaluation, concept design, product development, product test, engineering trial production and limited quantity to market, these 7 stages, and NPD participant units or departments are quite a lot. For example, in motorcycle development process, participant units include merchandise plan, sales, R&D, manufacture, mold design, and quality control departments, and even parts supplier or motorcycle agent. This kind of collaborative development method has the advantages of putting heads together so as to get better results and cooperation. However, it remains existing problems with wasting time and efforts on inter-department interaction and manual data communication, and data accuracy (eg. version of design chart). To cope with the above problems, most enterprises are solving via existing IT system, such as simplex e-mail, more complex ERP (enterprise resources planning, ERP) or PDM (product data management, PDM). These systems have their own functions. E-mail focuses on communication; ERP integrates information of manufacture, human resources, finance, and marketing; PDM puts emphasis on engineering data management. In the viewpoint of NPD, these systems can only provides partial functions, but are incapable of support the requirements of entire collaborative process. For example, e-mail cannot supplies simultaneous communication; ERP lacks of design mold required by R&D department; PDM only has engineering data. If other departments need related data, they must develop other software to obtain. Because of swift progress in IT plus the cooperation demands in business operation among enterprises, departments and individuals, all these arouse attention on collaborative commerce, and it can also recover the disadvantages of e-mail, ERP or PDM while operating in NPD process. Collaborative commerce contains collaborative scheme, collaborative marketing, collaborative product commerce (or development) and collaborative service, these system classifications. Within them, collaborative product development binds NPD most. In current, the main manufacturers are PTC, HP and IBM. The merits of the system lie in effective controlling NPD process, constructing NPD operation standard, and accumulating experiences in new product design and manufacture. For example, in1995 Airbus in France had used PTC Windchill to conduct collaborative aircraft design. In 1999, there was Taiwan manufacturer under government¡¦s subsidy applying this system on new motorcycle model design. The main objective to introduce collaborative product development software is applying IT to support NPD process. IT introduction process is an important period for enterprises to identify whether it is successful or not, and the adaptation during the process is the key accordance to determine success or failure of IT. Therefore, some scholars discuss IT introduction process from adaptation point of view. For example, Leonard ¡V Barton¡]LB¡^¡]1988¡^addresses mutual adaptation mode between technology and organization to resolve misalignment during introduction process in technology (original IT specification), delivery system (training courses), performance criteria (impact upon activity). Susman et al.¡]2003¡^addresses that while using collaborative technology, the misalignments between technology and work, team and organization should be solved. DeSantics and Poole¡]1994¡^ bring up adaptive structuration theory¡]AST¡^. The theory emphasizes on appropiration in technology, work, organizational environment and group. The higher the appropiration is, the higher the decision performance will be. Tyre and Orlikowski¡]1994¡^deem the technology adaptation is not gradual and continuous, but highly discontiunous. They indicate that in adaptation discrepancy events will discontinuously occur. This event provides enterprise an opportunity to review the suitability of existing process or a method to modify present process. Although above researches have provided vital results, research result from Majchrzak et al.¡]2000¡^about new technology introduction process still cannot clearly describe all phenomena. Hence, they have discussed adaptation in project process via rocket design project and used collaborative technology (such as e-mail, data sharing or electric board) Majchrzak et al. has connected collaborative technology and NPD, but the research has discussed small and simple collaborative technology only (such as e-mail), but lacked of result of large and complex collaborative product development software. Meanwhile, although the result is the application of NPD, it does not provide the adaptation of each NPD stage (such as engineering trial manufacture). Furthermore, the mature experiences from western countries, such as Airbus in France, in introduction of collaborative product development software in NPD is worthy of consultation, but the specific situations in different countries should be taken into consideration. In Taiwan, cases which application of collaborative product development software supports NPD are still rare, but these introduction experiences are worthy of making thorough inquiry for other enterprises¡¦ reference. Therefore, the article has selected a case closed study of Taiwan manufacturing that introduced collaborative product development software and accompanied with related adaptation theory (such as LB mode, AST, discrepancy event, etc.) to thoroughly investigate adaptation conditions and result analysis before, in the middle of, and after introduction.