Manufacturing Process Management: iterative synchronisation of engineering data with manufacturing realities

Abstract

The principles of Concurrent Engineering (CE) have led to an early introduction of manufacturing decisions in the Product Development Process (PDP). Nevertheless, the integration along the product life cycle of computer tools to help engineers manage their tasks in the global market still suffers from a poor understanding of information requirements for the effective streamline of the design to production process. Manufacturing Process Management (MPM) is a strategy that supports formal communication between engineering and production in a virtual 3D environment. This paper outlines how MPM enables a real-time assessment of component manufacturability and a parallelisation of product design and manufacturing processes. The proposed scheme is dedicated to offer CE teams the answers to integrated change management issues through a digital collaborative environment. From a technological perspective, a MPM solution provides an intelligent bridge between the Computer-Aided Design/Product Data Management (CAD/PDM) and Enterprise Resource Planning/Manufacturing Execution System (ERP/MES) software with viable perspectives for complete Product Life cycle Management (PLM) packages and new Knowledge Management (KM) approaches.