초록
An efficient management of product information is critical to the enhancement of corporate competitiveness. Product information is often distributed in term of organization, geography, and time. With the rapid increase in the use of Internet or its associated Web and intranets, it has been accelerating to integrate the distributed information. In this research, a Distributed, Open, Intelligent Product data Management system, namely DOI-PDM, is developed. This system deals with product information following the STEP standard, and its operation is controlled by a Web-based workflow management system. CORBA is employed to ensure interoperability among distributed objects. It is intended to achieve openness by using various standards, such s STEP, KQML, SGML, and WfMC specifications. One major difficulty in managing it needs also be properly modified according to the dynamics. It however is very hard to have a prior anticipation to the dynamics. It however is very hard to have a prior anticipation to the modification requirements in practice. We introduce a process adaptation model and a use of intelligent agent technology. An agent is delegated to modify process definitions during run-time. A method of agent implementation and a proper communication scheme among te agents are proposed. Also developed in this research is a STEP-based content search system which can co-work with the agents by providing relevant product information that the agents require.
