A Data Management Approach Based on Product Morphology in Product Lifecycle Management

In the product life cycle from conception to retirement, there are three forms: conceptual products, digital products and physical products. The carriers of conceptual products are requirements, functions and abstract structures, and data management focuses on the mapping of requirements, functions, and structures. The carrier of digital products is digital files such as drawings and models, and the focus of data management is the design evolution of product. Physical products are physical entities, and their attributes and states will change over time. Existing data model research often focuses on one or two forms, and it is even impossible to integrate three forms of data into one system. So, a new data management method based on product form is presented. According to the characteristics of the three product form data, a conceptual product data model, a digital product data model, and a physical product data model are established to manage the three forms of data, respectively, and use global object mapping to integrate them into a unified data model. The conceptual product data model has a single data model for a single business stage. The digital product data model uses the core data model as the single data source, and uses one stage rule filter to add constraints to the core data model for each business stage. The physical product data model uses the core data model to manage the public data of the physical phase, and the phase private data model focuses on the private data of each business phase. Finally, a case of Multi-Purpose Container Vessel is studied to verify the feasibility of the method. This paper proposes three product forms of product data management and a unified data management model covering the three product forms, which provides a new method for product life cycle data.

Definition and representation of stiffened shell structures in the context of an integrated development process

Purpose A novel development process aims at finding solutions for lightweight stiffened shell structures and their efficient production. To respect the strong interdependency of structural design and production planning, particularly observed for composite structures, it is of high interest to start considering production effects in early development phases. This integrated approach requires an integrated representation of structure and production. The purpose of this study is to investigate the scope of relevant data and to find a structure for its representation. Design/methodology/approach The development task is analyzed and a system of so-called solution dimensions is presented, which covers all important aspects of stiffened shell structures and their production. An integrated product data model is developed to cover all of the solution dimensions. Findings The product data model consists of five coherent partial models. It is explained how these models are defined and how they are connected to each other. An academic example of an aircraft fuselage panel is used to demonstrate the definition process. It is shown how even complex structural concepts are defined systematically. Practical implications It is explained how this integrated product data model is used in a software project for the development of aircraft fuselage structures. Originality/value The presented approach for the definition and representation of stiffened shell structures enables the developer, e.g. of aircraft fuselage, to respect the crucial criterion of manufacturability from early development phases on. Further, new design approaches, e.g. as inspired by topology optimization, can be considered.

Weld Management: Leveraging 3D Models and Visualization

Managing welding from engineering through to production and inspection and beyond is usually a disconnected, inefficient, laborious, unintuitive and error-prone process. The solution is to immerse this process within a 3D product data model environment with underlying software that is associative and that has on open architecture. This enables automatic change management, interactivity with other software applications, and data rich, intuitive visualizations of complex information. Building on work that was introduced to USA shipbuilders via the NSRP Second Tier Shipyard Design Enhancement projects II and III, SSI has developed a solution using its enhanced ShipConstructor WeldManagement application.

Research on Intelligent Collaborative System for Auto Parts Industry

Through the demand analysis of the business collaborative activities of auto parts enterprises, we establish the Intelligent Collaborative System. After the research on interaction process of collaborative quotation among auto parts enterprises, we build the product data model that supports multi enterprises’ collaborative response to customer requirements; according to the research of collaborative production planning principle, we propose the framework of auto parts enterprises’ building collaborative production planning; Based on the study of the hierarchical model of collaborative control of production process among multi enterprises, we discuss the framework of collaborative production process controlling among multi enterprises. The research indicates this system can meet the collaborative business demand of auto parts industry by using ASP mode and intelligent technology, also realize the intelligence.