Integrated Product and Process Data for B2b Collaboration

Collaborative development of engineered products in a business-to-business (B2B) environment will require more than just the selection of components from an on-line catalogue. It will involve the electronic exchange of product, process, and production engineering information during both design and manufacturing. While the state-of-the-practice does include a variety of ways to exchange product data electronically, it does not extend to the exchange of manufacturing process data. The reason is simple; process data is usually tied to specific manufacturing resources. These resources are not known typically at product development time. This paper proposes an approach, called an Integrated Product and Process Data (IPPD), where manufacturing process data is considered during product development. This approach replaces traditional process plans, which are resource specific, with a resource-independent process representation. Such a representation will allow a much wider collaboration among business partners and provide the necessary base for collaborative product development.