How engineering data management and system support the main process-oriented functions of a large-scale project

Abstract

This paper studies the benefits of establishing configuration management procedures and using an engineering data management systems (EDMS) in a large-scale project by dividing theoverall effort into successiveprocesses. Through the identification of the main functional groups who will use the EDMS, the paper outlines the basic motivations and services provided by such a system to each process during the life-cycle of the project. The implications of strict configuration management on the daily operation of each functional user group are also discussed. Themain argument ofthe paper is that each and every user of the EDMS must act in compliance with the configuration management procedures to guarantee the overall benefits from such a system. In truly global projects, special emphasis is placed on the management of distributed opera tions, which sets the flexible and universal access to all engineering and project related documents into a crucial role in the overall success of the project. As an example of the given challenge, this paper documents a World Wide Web-based system to manage documents and interface in-house document vaults and commercial EDM systems. The underlying environment of the case is that of CERN and the ongoing, decade-long, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project.