Research On The Work Flow Of Mould Collaborative Design And Manufacturing

Within the processes of mould design and manufacturing, the mould-making enterprises need to collaborate closely with their customers, suppliers, outsourcing machining enterprises to finish a wide arrange of activities and tasks from the complex products design, product modeling, performance analysis, mould machining and product delivery etc. The process of mould design and manufacturing is widely recognized as a typical collaborative process among multi-enterprises.Based on the investigation and analysis of a large number of small-to-medium mould-making enterprises (SMEs) in South-China, it was found that most of SMEs still make use of relatively traditional means such as telephone communication, face to face negotiation or discussion, e-mail and FTP to exchange messages in the process of design and manufacturing. Based on these ways, not only is the lower efficiency, and the higher costs, but also more difficulty to meet the due time to deliver the mould.Targeting the situation and problems of the traditional mould design and manufacturing processes in SMEs, this dissertation mainly studied the thoughts of network-enabled manufacturing and computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), the ideas of collaborative product commerce (CPC) and the most famous collaborative software system such Windchill ProjectLink from Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC). Then, a systemic framework of collaborative mould-making work flow was proposed, that is supported by ProjectLink platform, to implement the collaborative messages exchange during the whole processes in design and manufacturing among mould-making SMEs. Finally, based on the functions and components provided by ProjectLink, the mould-making work flow was instantiated so that the cooperative data, tasks and activities are effectively managed and the mould enterprises, customers and manufacturing enterprises are tightly integrated.In more details, the followings are the main research works, contents and contributions to knowledge in the dissertation:1. An investigation and analysis to large number of small-to-mediummould-making enterprises (SMEs) in South-China was conducted.2. The mould-making work flow for SMEs was established.3. A collaborative systemic frame and the operational work flow based on ProjectLink for mould-making SMEs was structured.4. The mould-making work flow was partly instantiated so that the collaborative data, tasks and activities are effectively managed and monitored...