A best-matching protocol for collaborative e-work and e-manufacturing

Abstract

In collaborative e-work over largely distributed organisations it is often necessary to match sets of components or suppliers for better-quality assemblies, or for better-quality contracts. In such cases, the importance of efficiently and effectively sharing, matching and leveraging real-time information is demonstrated in e-work and e-manufacturing systems via a best-matching protocol (BMP). The developed BMP enables better and quicker matches for both geometrical (e.g. physical parts) and non-geometrical attributes (e.g. members in a supply network). Improvement is measured using the newly defined best-fit index. Four statistical distributions are applied to characterise part specifications of the physical components. The statistical analysis corroborates that the performance of BMP in yielding significantly better matches for geometrical specifications (within acceptable tolerance limits) is consistent across uniform and normal distributions. The economic value of a match (EVM) is also evaluated for different economic costs. The results of applying EVM indicate that organisations need to define policies for matching as it is not always economically desirable to match parts. A double-match that includes a best-matching process for non-geometrical attributes and prior matching results from the manufacturing scenario is also performed to identify suppliers that provide the best parts and costs combinations.