A workflow system for the management of inter-company collaborative engineering processes

Abstract

Information Technology has supported distributed team members in concurrent engineering environments for some time. This paper addresses the co-ordination of design work within the concurrent engineering environment. We refer to this as engineering workflow (EWF) [1]. We also address the challenging task of co-ordinating design activity across the supply chain. Current workflow systems, either stand-alone or incorporated into a product data management system, are rather static and offer little flexibility to engineering design. This limits their ability to support dynamic complex processes such as product development, especially for activities that span company borders. This paper describes an engineering workflow approach to control early phases of product design that is suitable for concurrent engineering's dynamic and iterative processes. The approach uses parameters to reflect basic engineering decisions. It captures parameter evolution, the relationships among parameters, and communication among different partners in the supply chain during evolution of parameter values. The EWF presented co-ordinates this activity through: the control procedure for upgrading parameters, the control procedure roles, the work list associated with the activities performed, and the data associated with the EWF approach. This paper develops these concepts, and highlights the benefits of this approach when used in a distributed concurrent engineering environment.