Distributed product lifecycle informatics agents

Chan-Woo Chung, Purdue University

Abstract

Various engineering advisory systems are introduced in the beginning of this thesis. In the material selection advisory system, a heuristic and intuitive method is shown to assist relatively inexperienced designers in selection of materials, especially in the early design stages. The group-based search provides a full scope of materials to select from. Metal-casting advisor shows a practical implementation that can directly help engineers in making decisions in the casting process selection. The cost advisory system on metal-casting, manufacturing, and rapid tooling has been built and shows various schemes to address cost issues. Active use of process and machine information together with database systems and the results show the usefulness of such systems in design decision making processes. After introducing various agent tools, a design interaction system is introduced. In DPM system architecture, the interaction between customers and suppliers in a web-based collaborative system has been shown and the advantages have been discussed. Fundamental issues concerning product design and manufacturing are dealt with in depth by introducing product architecture and modeling. After the observation on the product models, together with current design and manufacturing practices, problems causing inefficiencies have also been identified. Object-oriented product design system architecture, “Product Node architecture,” has been introduced to resolve the problems of current product and process management systems (i.e. lack of flexibility and scalability). The PN system also addresses many other issues such as structuring projects, creating data, managing information, version control, design reuse, user management, and file access, and solutions are suggested for them. A well-structured database system design and advanced control programming enable the PN architecture to deal with complicated product design issues. Cooperative development of “Global Product Lifecycle Management System” is discussed to show a vision for developing a global PLM system. The reasons for the failure of current PLM systems have been analyzed, and a viable solution, Open Source software method, is suggested. Important issues in software development such as security, robustness, and cost, have been discussed in detail in applying the OSS method. A list of contents and procedures to perform the big project has been suggested.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Ramani, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Mechanical engineering

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