ESPRIT project 20723, PLENT 3rd Review Meeting

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ESPRIT project 25360 COWORK Concurrent
project development IT tools for small-medium
enterprises netWORKs.
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Virtual Enterprise concept
A Network of autonomous SMEs supported by proper
organisational and ITC tools, allowing the
single enterprise to participate as virtual
shareholder to a common business, according to
his mission and skills
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VE projects suite
Production management in an SMEs network EP
20723 - PLENT Co-operative design in an SMEs
network EP 25360 - COWORK Virtual Enterprise
assessment, constitution and management EP 26854
- VIVE
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Cowork project objective

• Developing a new software tool enabling SMEs
• working in the mechanical sector,
• to co-operate in a distributed engineering
  environment,
• to dramatically save time and reduce product
  engineering costs.
• Expected technical results
• A Standardised Product Model (SPM)
• A Design Process Model (DPM)
• A SME Competence Model (SCM)
• The related software support tools

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Basic facts

• The main success factors of a product in all
  sectors are (i) short time-to-market and (ii)
  high quality level since the beginning
• All manufacturing SMEs (in particular in the
  mechanical sector) need to frequently innovate
  their products this policy cannot be effectively
  applied because of (i) long time and (ii) high
  costs required for new products design
• Market offers some IT instruments to support the
  organisation of engineering activities
  nevertheless their characteristics of use are
  absolutely incompatible with SMEs procedures
• Systematic application of co-design techniques
  based on paritary relationships among different
  enterprises is particularly interesting for SMEs
  unfortunately software tools available on the
  market do not offer adequate capabilities to
  support such activities.

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More basic facts

• Very soft formalism in product modelling (large
  use of the concepts of family, subset)
• Very fast design structures
• Know-how of the whole project not-completely
  controlled by the main contractor, but often
  scattered among all sub-contractors, which become
  effective partners and define the product
  specifications up to the initial designing phase.
• Claim from concurrent enterprises to common
  sub-contractors for the planning of parts not
  perceived as qualifying from the commercial point
  of view claim from non-concurrent enterprises to
  common sub-contractors for the planning of common
  parts.
• Impossibility to make a long-term plan because of
  market behaviour or leaders' innovations.
• Availability, inside the enterprise, of CAD
  systems, increasingly 3D.
• Ability to design and manufacture also products
  of medium-high complexity, frequently associated
  with high export rate of the product.

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Co-design in SMEs network typical situations

• Demand of a new complex product out of reach of
  the single SME co-operative design and
  production is required, but potential market is
  too limited to justify a joint-venture
• Supply of a complex component in place of its
  single parts co-ordinated re-engineering is
  required, avoiding exclusive connections, since
  an enterprise can be part of several supply
  chains
• Non-complete availability, within the
  enterprise, of the requested know-how need of a
  sub-contracting activity this type of
  sub-contractors become effective partners
• Difficulties to balance the work load in the
  technical office SMEs technical offices
  characterised by lean structure. High potential
  for co-operation in day-by-day activity
• Need for quick reactions to follow market
  leaders innovations co-operation between SMEs is
  required also in design and not only in
  manufacturing, in order to reduce time to market.

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Fundamental assumption

• CoWork philosophy a basic assumption
• co-designers are independent companies,
• co-operating in the design
• of a common, complex product
• all partners maintain total autonomy
• in performing the assigned tasks

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SMEs network co-design

• Autonomous work organisation the single
  co-designer is the only responsible of its design
  task organisation and planning.
• Preserving know-how each enterprise desires to
  preserve its know-how thus, no direct access to
  the whole amount of its data can be allowed to
  other partners
• Dynamic network a co-design network lasts just
  for the duration of the co-design activity. The
  network configuration for a project may deeply
  vary depending on the different co-design phases.
  From the single node viewpoint, the participation
  in different projects can occur simultaneously.
• Technical competence usually the enterprises
  involved in a project have poor ICT technical
  competencies.
• Heterogeneous computing system each enterprise
  uses a proper computing system and, specifically,
  a certain CAD system, a certain PDM system (often
  home made), and so on.

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Network structure
The main contractor (MC) Every node that assigns
co-design tasks to lower level nodes. It
establishes technical and non-technical
requirements to the co-designers work, evaluates
design results and possible counterproposals
coming from them. The co-designer (CD) Any
network node that has a co-design task assigned
by another node. It receives requirements,
performs the envisaged design work and
communicates back the results of this activity.
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Network Architecture

• Network characteristics
• Distributed organisation.
• Hierarchical co-ordination.
• Nested encapsulation principle.

Standardised Product Model (SPM) Design Process
Model (DPM) SME Competence Model (SCM)
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Node configuration

• CoWork node software
• is divided into four main modules
• Product Process manager,
• including VM utility
• Internal Data Exchange Tool
• SCM access module
• External Data Exchange Tool

Standardised Product Model (SPM) Design Process
Model (DPM) SME Competence Model (SCM) Visualizer
Mark-up (VM)
Windows NT DB SQL
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The three CoWork models

• Standardised Product Model (SPM) deals with
  the product data representation and manages the
  knowledge that is strictly necessary to support
  the co-design activities of the single node
  within the network (descriptive and quantitative
  data on product and its components, project
  documentation such as textual descriptions,
  graphics and images, up to 2D-3D CAD drawings,
  all possibly marked up with annotations)
• Design Process Model (DPM) handles the process
  by which the product is designed needed
  activities, dependencies between them, rules to
  follow, time schedules and constraints, work
  planning, participant organisation and
  synchronisation of all of them (project
  definition, organisation of the network of
  co-designers, negotiation processes)
• SMEs Competence Model (SCM) each node of the
  network provides information on company specifics
  including geographic location, application
  domain, products and processes, services and
  capabilities. The SCM represents and relates this
  information so as to support general facilities
  for navigating, filtering and browsing.

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Conclusion values offered by COWORK software

• Help in the creation of SMEs networks, for
  co-operation in products design support to the
  identification of possible partners through
  structured information searching in a SME
  Competence Repository
• Management of all engineering phases, even in
  heterogeneous environments and in different
  geographical locations
• Simplification and automatisation in the exchange
  of informations, thanks to a model of the product
  having a high semantic content. This model
  manages geometrical and non-geometrical product
  information.
• Support to reuse of previous projects and
  components, and management of changes and
  versions during the project life cycle.
• Use of the most updated Internet/Intranet
  technologies to support distributed co-operation.
• Exchange of informations with non-Cowork users,
  through standardised technologies (ISO-10303
  /AP214 Physical File).

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A consideration

• Question may remain the same
• but answers always change
• A. Einstein

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ESPRIT project 25360 COWORK Concurrent
project development IT tools for small-medium
enterprises netWORKs.
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SPM/DPM data access
SPM/DPM data access
CoWork data
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