A collaborative framework to exchange and share product information within a supply chain context

The new requirement for “collaboration” between multidisciplinary collaborators induces to exchange and share adequate information on the product, processes throughout the products’ lifecycle. Thus, effective capture of information, and also its extraction, recording, exchange, sharing, and reuse become increasingly critical. These lead companies to adopt new improved methodologies in managing the exchange and sharing of information. The aim of this paper is to describe a collaborative framework system to exchange and share information, which is based on: (i) The Product/Process/Collaboration/Organization model (PPCO) which defines product and process information, and the various collaboration methods for the organizations involved in the supply chain. (ii) Viewpoint model describes relationships between each actor and the comprehensive Product/Process model, defining each actor’s “domain of interest” within the evolving product definition. (iii) A layer which defines the comprehensive organization and collaboration relationships between the actors within the supply chain. (iv) Based on the above relationships, the last layer proposes a typology of exchanged messages. A communication method, based on XML, is developed that supports optimal exchange/sharing of information. To illustrate the proposed framework system, an example is presented related to collaborative design of a new piston for an automotive engine. The focus is on user-viewpoint integration to ensure that the adequate information is retrieved from the PPCO. Keywords― Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Collaboration, Viewpoint, Product Information Exchange.