Approach on implementing a PLM solution into a collaborative engineering network for product design automation.

Musca, Gavril ; Musca, Elena ; Merticaru, Vasile, Jr. 等

1. INTRODUCTION

There are well known the necessities of the industrial economic agents for conceiving, designing and producing qualitative, economical and aesthetical products. A key factor in satisfying these needs is collaborative engineering in product development and a solution for this is the implementation of a PLM system. Usually, in the approach of implementing a PLM solution, a multitude of problems occur. There is intended to nominate in the paper some efforts existing in the Technical University "Gh. Asachi" of Iasi from Romania (Musca et al., 2008) for developing a collaborative network for the implementation of a PLM solution in order to create conditions for a better collaboration between the research teams of specialists from universities and industrial economic agents, for solving the problems identified in the computer aided conception, starting with the activities of CAD (Merticaru et al. 2008)., design and ergonomics of the product, cinematic simulation of the product in the design phase, simulation of the functioning behavior using FEA, conception of the manufacturing technology CAM.

2. PLM SYSTEMS REFERENCE

The companies that develop product design activities are capable to generate the technical documentation of the products to a great extent, but often these companies do not register some properties of the components as they can be easily found and especially reused. That is why the project engineers have problems in accessing the needed information (Usher et al., 2005). Difficulties occur in the ability of the project engineers to efficiently manage the product information.

The information systems for the management of the technical information have the capacity to administrate both the properties associated with each product or with the components of a product and the technical documentation of the projects by relating these types of information (Grieves 2006). The way the PDM (Product Data Management) systems cover these requirements is based on stocking the information just once, providing data integrity, monitoring and controlling of the design data changes or updating. Any information from the system can be distributed toward any department based on the priorities of the importance degree established for each user. When a change is made upon any data from the system, this will be automatically registered by the system, keeping the date and author of the change. Since the information generated by a company becomes more and more voluminous, the necessity of establishing a classifying and managing solution is imperative. This capacity for classifying and managing information is the fundamental requirement for a PDM/PLM system.

The main characteristics of a system of information management regarding the life-time product are (Ausura & Deck, 2003): reduces the time for realizing a new product (Time to market); improves the productivity of the design/calculation process; improves the design and manufacturing accuracy; determines an innovative content of the products; provide data security; provide a better control upon changes.

3. THE DEVELOPED COLLABORATIVE NETWORK AND PLM IMPLEMENTATION

For implementing, in the economic environment specific to the Romanian industry, a PLM solution into a network formed by researchers belonging to some universities and specialists from manufacturing enterprises, certain stages are necessary, within them the following outstanding: the knowledge acquirement and the development of skills for using CAD systems; to know the concept of data management and to establish some procedures for implementation at the level of functional areas into an industrial enterprise; establishment of the soft and hard structure of the system used for data management; the training of the staff involved in the activity of products' conceive, design and manufacturing.

The research team the authors belong to, have passed through the above mentioned stages, both for their own team and for their industrial partners. After the training of several groups of participants in the PLM program, groups belonging to the partners, there have been observed that a vital direction for the success of the approach is to form new specialists in the areas of interest, respectively firstly CAD and CAM and secondly in Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) or data management for the Product Lifecycle. The best results have been obtained with teams formed by researchers from universities and students.

At the level of a PLM network, functional within an environment heterogeneous as education and preoccupations, one of the main requirements is to form a motivated and efficient virtual team. The premises of forming a team, efficient in work in the virtual environment, base on: adequate level of knowledge for accomplishing the tasks for the main stages of the product lifecycle, CAD, CAM, relationships with the suppliers and customers; motivation of the team working by co-interesting and counsellorship in the domain of PDM/PLM. There have been found that partial accomplishment of some premises is not sufficient; so the financial co-interesting of the team members can be inefficient if the motivation of the team working does not exist. The accomplishment of this premise is difficult for the teams of the partners from industry, even if the presumed results are known and noteworthy. Even in the research environments or in the universities, some malfunctions can be found, caused, accordingly to the authors' opinion, by: insufficient number of persons with abilities in the CAD/CAM/CAE area; inefficient education of the specialists in this domains and of the students, as the work with a CAD system requires to go through a training stage that must be individually realized; differences between the team members regarding the knowledge level, which lead to difficulties in collaborative activity.

Considering the experience gathered in the CAD area by the authors, the implementation of the PLM solution started with the design of some elements necessary for the industrial partners. For the design stage, SolidEdge-v20 has been used. Some of the projects realized within this approach by a team formed of professors and students, are combined stamping tools used for processing sheet metal. The use of this type of constructive projects as support for the implementation of the PLM solution is justified by: the necessity of managing the information for this type project; this example is applied for managing the design data for a set of stamping tools, able to realize several types of sheet metal parts, using normalized elements such as plates, columns, bushes, clamping and fixing elements; the precise management of the design activity, for realizing some modular stamping tools, by modifying the active elements and keeping the supporting constructive elements (plates, columns, bushes, clamping and fixing elements); the extending of the data management process in the area of stamping tools manufacturing, providing the reducing of the necessary of work by reusing some components normalized at the level of the manufacturing department. Each working team, activating in the CAD stage of the product lifecycle, has a manager, an administrator of the computer network, designers, verifiers and drafters.

In Fig.1 is exemplified a CAD result, for a combined stamping tool, for cut-out and draw, used for processing sheet metal parts.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

TeamCenter Express was adopted as environment for the implementation of the PLM solution. The development of the design procedures was done with a team that realized the design of the components on the established network, with the resources managed by the TcX system. The database assigned to the project is automatically realized, when saving each component of the project. These components represent parts, drafts, sub-assemblies and the final assembly. The access to the components of the project is possible with the aid of a component of the TcX system, Product Structure Editor, as it is shown in Fig.2.

For this stage, there are realized the procedures for the management of the design data, procedures which can be appealed by the project manager. These procedures display the project's status and the activity of each member of the team.

There are in course to be elaborated the work-flow procedures for computer-aided management of the assignment of the work tasks (design, verifying, drafting, sign-up). For the product structure, taken over from the bill of materials of the final assembly, there are designed procedures for data management, for the management of the design activities and for the work stages for product development.

4. CONCLUSION

The paper proposes a collaborative engineering methodology for developing some type projects, specific to the machine manufacturing industry. The realization of projects for some stamping devices, dies and injection moulds, using some computer aided design software, uses the experience and the specialty knowledge of the industrial partners and the abilities of the teams from universities in the field of CAD software at international level.

The development of design knowledge at the level of the collaborative network is assured by integrating the CAD, CAM and CAE modules into an integrated solution, into an open environment, leading to a greater efficiency of integrating information in the designed products and processes.

These approaches are stipulated in the phase of product conception but also in that of presenting and realizing some visualization elements, product promotion and presentation catalogues, using specialized software and compatible to the software used in computer aided design.

5. REFERENCES

Ausura, B. & Deck, M. (2003). The "new" Product Lifecycle Management systems: What are these PLM systems? And how can they help your company do NPD better? Available from: http://www.pdma.org/visions/jan03/plm.html, Accessed: 2007-12-12.

Grieves, M., (2006), Product Lifecycle Management. Driving the Next Generation of Lean Thinking. McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-145230-3, New York.

Usher, J. M.; Roy, U. & Parsaei, H. (2005), Integrated Product and Process Development: Methods, Tools, and Technologies, John Wiley & Sons Inc., ISBN: 978-0-471-15597-3, New York.

Merticaru, V. jr; Musca, G & Recio-Perero, P. (2008). Using CAD instruments for Collaborative Product Development in PLM Environment, Proceedings of Annual Session of Scientific Papers "IMT Oradea"--May 2008 & Annals of the Oradea University, Fascicle of Management and Technological Engineering, Vol.VII(XVII), ISSN 1583-0691, Oradea, Romania.

Musca, G; Musca, E. & Merticaru, V. jr (2008). Implementing a PLM Strategy in Collaborative Network for Products Development. Academic Journal of manufacturing Engineering, vol.6, issue 3/2008, pp.99-106, ISSN 1583-7904, Timisoara, Romania.