BULETINUL INSTITUTULUI POLITEHNIC DIN IAŞI - Universitatea ...

228 Irène Alexandrescu et al.
Globalization and internationalization differentiated the spectrum of offered
goods and increased the need for custom solutions. There are many different
standards and norms coming from saturated markets or interesting emerging
ones, which have to be satisfied with consideration to the massive constraints
additionally imposed by the economic crisis and the environmental concerns.
Product specific knowledge management nowadays is one of the main
factors for the sustainable competitive advantage of a manufacturing company.
It is an important differentiator for the unique core competences of the
company, as well as the essence for developing successful, knowledge based,
market oriented products and services.
In order to achieve customer satisfaction, companies in the field of
mechanical engineering producing custom solutions have to master their
knowledge and generate fast, optimized and technically correct offers for their
products. This paper describes how this can be achieved by using virtualization
and automatization techniques on a methodically structured product knowledge
base.
2. Scattered Knowledge Base in Early Design Phases
In order to deal with the increasing requirements and the competitive
markets, companies use for the generation of the offering of complex custom
products several software tools, such as: Computer Aided Design and
Manufacturing (CAD/CAM) Software, Product Data/Lifecycle Management
(PDM/PLM) solutions, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems,
configuration tools and calculation programs. Common applications are in the
aircraft [1] or automotive industry [2].
However, through the variety of software, the complexity of the internal
processes is increased. A good overview to the state of the art is shown in the
CIRP Proceedings [3].
Unfortunately, in praxis, the product knowledge base is scattered through
these systems and normally in each development phase the product knowledge
is documented in separate specific systems. The existing PLM/PDM systems
are often not properly used and there is seldom a platform available to
interconnect or translate the different pieces of information, for a global review
or decision taking.
Fig. 1 shows a sequence diagram for the standard processes that take place
in the early development phases for the generation of a customized offer; the
involved departments and their individual software are also displayed.