Product Database Modeling for Collaborative Product Development

To deliver new products to market in a due time, companies often develop their products with numerous partners distributed around the world. Internet technologies can provide a cheap and efficient basis of collaborative product development among distributed partners. This paper provides a framework and its product database model that can support consistent product data during collaborative product development. This framework consists of four components for representing consistent product structure: the product configuration, assembly structure, multiple representations and engineering changes. A product database model realizing the framework is designed and implemented as a system that supports collaborative works in the areas of product design and technical publication. The system enables participating designers and technical publishers to complete their tasks with shared and consistent product data. It also manages the propagation of engineering changes among different representations for individual participants. The Web technologies introduced in this system enable participants to easily access and operate shared product data in a standardized and distributed computing environment.