IMPLEMENTATION OF WEB BASED CONCURRENT ENGINEERING IN PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT

Abstract
To increase product competitiveness, current manufacturing enterprises have to deliver
their products at reduced cost and high quality in a short time. Traditional production patterns
and manufacturing technologies may find it difficult to satisfy the requirements of current
product development. Many types of advanced manufacturing techniques, such as Computer
Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), Agile Manufacturing (AM), Concurrent Engineering (CE),
and Virtual Enterprise (VE) based on global manufacturing have been proposed to meet these
requirements. Information systems have become the nerve center of current manufacturing
systems. So some new requirements on information modeling are introduced. Database
systems are the key to implementing information modeling. Engineering information
modeling requires database support. Engineering applications, however, are data- and
knowledge- intensive applications. This paper explores the various requirement of CPD
system and develop methods to facilitate the integrated design, analysis and webpage
communication between engineering information systems, such as, product data in the form
of XML (Extensible Markup Language) stylesheets, through internet. The key technologies
and techniques adopted in the present paper are STEP (STandard for the Exchange of Product
model data) supporting EXPRESS information models, object-oriented databases and XML.
Key words: STEP, Extensible Markup Language, Collaborative Product Development
1. INTRODUCTION
Today’s engineering industries face many challenges in this competitive world. In order
to meet the competition in the market, the information technology and product’s innovative
content have significant factors. The product development process in manufacturing
companies is usually organized in sequential engineering. In this environment, specialists
from different domains involved in product design and the related manufacturing processes
work in an isolated and independent way. The shortcomings of Sequential Engineering
include high developmental costs, expensive redesigns and re-work, poor communications
and interactions between designers/process planners/manufacturing engineers, lack of critical
decision-making with respect to the product development, etc, [1].
Collaborative Product Development (CPD), a part of Concurrent engineering (CE) and
form the modern philosophy to reengineer the traditional product design and development
processes leading to better quality, shorter lead-time, more competitive cost and higher
customer satisfaction[2].
A full-scale implementation of the philosophy to form an integrated and collaborative
product development environment includes two aspects:
• The upstream design and downstream manufacturing processes are seamlessly linked
through the implementation of some intelligent reasoning and integration strategies for
effective information exchange , and
• Collaborative design, fuelled by cooperation strategies and the Internet technologies, is
realized through collocating a multi-disciplinary design team and emphasizing interpersonal
aspects of the group work.
It is technically difficult and time consuming to integrate and communicate information
between computers due to heterogeneity is the inevitable result caused by the diversity of
computer software and hardware. And computer network technology has led to a distributed
working environment where an ever increasing number of distributed information systems
are involved and running on many computers.
 There are several barriers that hinder the development and processing of a product. One
of the great hurdles in implementation of CE and CPD is Data Exchange.
Despite much progress in CAD techniques, current CAD systems still have inherent
limitations concerning collaborative design. Some typical limitations are:
• CAD systems are stand-alone, single-user applications.
• Single-user access to data and associated information, such as mechanisms for a CAD
model check-in and check-out, means that users have insufficient interaction and
collaboration in terms of online CAD model co-design.
• Collaborative design participants have to coordinate their design activities by other
means, e.g., telephone, email, or video conferencing, rather than in their current CAD
environment.
• CAD systems use file-based storage and data exchange. This produces some drawbacks
in terms of access to CAD data structure and high-level functionality.
• Parallel access to shared information is restricted.
• If product data is distributed amongst several files, accessing and combining the required
part of the file is difficult.
To over come these barriers, organizations emphasis constantly changing from old
systems to new initiatives. This aspect has prompted investigations on the use of new data
exchange frame work for the product data and material selection mechanisms to support
concurrent engineering. The data exchange uses; STandard for the Exchange of Product
model data (STEP)/XML. The present work focuses on specific issues such as data exchange
and material selection at design stage.
A translator has been developed to communicate the product data and material properties
in client/server environment. This translator program converts the STEP file into an XML
file. The XML format is the lightweight web-based communication format. And also
material selection algorithms are developed using fuzzy logic and neural networks
techniques. The information obtained from the translator and selection algorithms are
exchanged through a properly secured web page between different users in the enterprise so
that it can create concurrent engineering environment throughout the product life cycle.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Within the engineering design and manufacturing context, there have been many
research works for the integration of various engineering data, models or software tools,
besides the groupware technology in a CSCW community, DICE, SHASTRA, SHADE,
PACT, DOME, CADOM, RAPPID, KIEF, and KaViDo like. These are only the beginning
and more work remains to be done in this direction [3]. Besides all these technologies,
information exchange systems supporting distributed engineering, CE and CPD are being
studied in recent years.
Greenberg.S [4] in his paper on computer supported cooperative work and groupware,
discussed contemporary organizations that employ a vast array of computing technology to
support their information processing needs. There are many successful computing tools
designed as personal computing aids, but fewer tools are designed for collaborating groups of
people. A computer-based architecture program called the Distributed and Integrated
Environment for Computer-Aided Engineering (DICE), which provides cooperation and
coordination among multiple designers working in separate engineering disciplines, is
described by Duvvuru Sriram and Robert Logcher [5]. Vinod Anupam & Chandrajit.L. Bajaj
[6] worked on SHASTRA for the collaborative applications to provide a distributed
heterogeneous environment for multimedia collaboration and facilitate the development of
collaborative applications for concurrent engineering by providing a rich substrate. SHAred
Dependency Engineering project (SHADE), developed at Stanford University, is primarily
concerned with the information sharing aspect of the concurrent engineering problem [7].

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This work demonstrates a flexible infrastructure for anticipated knowledge-based, machine-
mediated collaboration between disparate engineering tools.
Several research groups jointly developed the Palo Alto Collaborative Testbed
(PACT), a concurrent engineering infrastructure that encompasses multiple sites, subsystems,
and disciplines [8]. PACT is a significant demonstration of both the collaborative research
effort and of agent-based technology. In later years the attention has been turned to multi user
systems through Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Study of group work and
implementation of technologies enhancement of group interaction and collaboration is
presented by Jonathan Grudin and Steven Poltrock [9]. An integrative framework called
Distributed Object-based Modeling and Evaluation (DOME) is intended for product design
problems [10]. This enables designers to rapidly construct, performance models of complex
problems which provide both design insight and a tool to evaluate, optimize and select better
alternatives.
Several aspects supporting the collaborative design enabled by the Component Agent
Design-Oriented Model (CADOM) are discussed by Rosenman, M. A. and Wang, F. [11].
This paper reviews the state-of-the-art of the current research on product modeling, and a
schema for a Design-Oriented Model (DOM), containing functional, structural and
management data, is proposed. The integration of functional and management data directs the
model towards design integration in place of application integration. Responsible Agents for
Product-Process Integrated Design (RAPPID) project developed by H.V.D. Parunak et.al [12]
is agent based software tool and method that uses market dynamics among members of a
distributed design team to coordinate set-based design of discrete manufactured products.
However, the flow of information is not unidirectional.
2.1. User Interaction:
Knowledge Intensive Engineering Framework (KIEF) tool for supporting various
engineering activities related to the whole life cycle of artifacts; e.g. design and maintenance
discussed by Masaharu Yoshioka [13]. In this framework, various kinds of engineering tools
can be integrated by intensively storing engineering knowledge base and representing the
relationship among them. Karlsruhe’s Virtual Documentation a web-based system tool for
collaborative research and development is presented by Oliver Tamine and Rudiger Dillmann
[14]. It ensures that product information and construction knowledge are shared between the
project collaborators.
Xie and Salvendy [15] designed a prototype 3D CAD browser that uses asynchronous
collaboration. Four agent - based features, viz. Comment Status, Communication Agent,
Team Member Information Enhancement, and Task Information Enhancement, are proposed
to support communication activity, coordination, and collaboration awareness issue. Edwards
et al. [16] presented an infrastructure, called Bayon, designed to support the construction of
asynchronous collaborative applications. This application defines conflict detection and
resolution, selection of session guarantees, selection of committed or tentative data, and
replica selection.
Mike Philpotts [17] in his paper on concepts, benefits and terminology of Product Data
Management, discussed Product Data Management (PDM) systems enabling tool of CE.
Although the PDM system provides good support for product data, particularly at the early
stages of design, it is seldom used beyond the design process. Fu Qian and Zhang Shensheng
[18] proposed a WorkFlow Management System (WFMS) to control the whole lifecycle. The
WFMS is suitable for project management. It can manage the activity, the role and the
resource (e.g. person, equipment) effectively.
Nadjib Bouikni, et.al, [19] presented paper on multiple views management system for
concurrent engineering and PLM. CE integrates several disciplines contributing to product

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design. Both PLM and CE involve information sharing amongst disciplines having a specific
point of view regarding the product.
3. PROPOSED COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM
The Web is one of the most popularly used internet tools to provide a light-weight and an
operation system independent platform for users to search, browse, retrieve and manipulate
information disseminated and shared remotely. Integration tools use Web technology and the
internet to allow people in different faculties to interact, resolve problems, reach compromise
and otherwise work together online. This is quicker and more effective than phone
conversations, faxes or mail, and it is more economical and efficient than getting together for
a face-to-face meeting. In the present work a CPD system boundary is developed (fig.1).

Fig.1 Collaborative Product Development System

It integrates designer, analyzer and manufacturer, as clients to the main server in an
extended enterprise, using web page so that it creates a CE environment [20]. In server side, a
PDM database is used to store/retrieve client’s data like login information, designer files,
analysis data files, manufacturer-required data etc., in the required format. In the proposed
system boundary, the data exchange between client and server is through XML Style sheets.
4. INTRODUCTION TO PRODUCT DATA AND XML
ISO 10303, known as the STEP, is a family of standards defining a robust and time-
tested methodology for describing product data throughout the lifecycle of the product. STEP
is widely used in CAD and PDM systems. But STEP is not an XML vocabulary. Product data
models in STEP are specified in EXPRESS, a modeling language combining ideas from the
entity-attribute-relationship family of modeling languages with object modeling concepts.
4.1 ENCODING STEP DATA AS XML:
As a simple example of how STEP data might be encoded in XML, the following
EXPRESS definition of a product is considered. From the definition product, declares
product to be an entity type and name, quantity, description, and frame_of_reference to
be attributes (EXPRESS attributes, not XML attributes) of that entity type given in table 1. A
product's name and description are strings, its quantity is an integer, and its
frame_of_reference is a set of one or more product_context EXPRESS entities. The
description is optional; all other EXPRESS attributes are required.
Table 1 Express Schema Entity PRODUCT
ENTITY product;
name : STRING;
quantity : INTEGER;
description : OPTIONAL
STRING;

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 frame_of_reference: SET [1:?] OF
product_context;
END_ENTITY;
Now considering an XML representation of a particular product, the product entity type
and its EXPRESS attributes are represented as elements. Here XML elements are used rather
than XML attributes to represent EXPRESS attributes for the following reasons:
• XML elements can contain other markup, making it easier to represent EXPRESS
attributes such as frame_of_reference whose values are aggregates of EXPRESS entity
instances.
• Using XML elements to represent EXPRESS attributes guarantees that names of XML
attributes used to represent metadata, such as the <Product> element’s id
attribute, and will not conflict with EXPRESS attributes.
The id attribute, which uniquely identifies the product, does not correspond to any
EXPRESS construct. XML representation (early binding) of the tag names corresponds
directly to their counterparts in EXPRESS schema (Table 2).
Table 2. Entity PRODUCT data in the form of XML data (early binding)
<Product id="p1">
<name>Bicycle</name>
<quantity>1</quantity>
<frame_of_reference>
...
</frame_of_reference>
</Product>
5. INTERFACE PROGRAM
In this work an interface program is developed to convert neutral format STEP file into
XML tags using VB language. EXPRESS schema entity definitions for product data are
stored in MS Access (as database in this paper). These are used for generating XML tags. The
product data as designer information (name, id, personal address etc), and organization
information are extracted from STEP file as per the EXPRESS schema entities in database.
These are displayed in the form of XML style sheets. Template is designed using front end
language (VB) for the execution of interface program. This can directly interface to web
(fig.2). Conversion of STEP file to XML style sheets is performed in four stages viz. open
STEP file, create XML schema, create XML data and create PDM data.

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 Input the STEP file
which is generated
by any Modeling
package
Creates the
Product data
information in .txt
format Creates the
XMLSchema for
validating the
XML file

Creates the
Product data in
Creates the Product
the form of XML
data in the form of
Style Sheets
XSL Style Sheets

Fig 2 Interface program, it converts STEP file into XML file

5.1 OPEN STEP FILE: Open the STEP file command executes to divide entire STEP file
into three parts File Description, Product Data, and Geometry data. Each entity data in the file
again split into required format and saved data in the database using Active Data Objects
(ADO) control in VB.
5.2 CREATE XML-SCHEMA: This command gets the required data from the database and
creates the XML-Schema file. Here the organization information (id, name and description)
in the form of XML schema is saved as file name schema_list.xsd. The actual STEP data is
#26=ORGANIZATION.
5.3 CREATE XML DATA: On executing this command, the XML tags are generated using
given STEP file data and EXPRESS schema entity information maintained in the database.
5.4 CREATE PDM DATA: The Extensible Style sheet Language (XSL) [21] is the World
Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) language for manipulating XML data. XSLT is the
component of XSL that allows the program developer to write a Stylesheet that can apply to
XML documents. The result of the XSLT processor creates a new XML document based on
the source document. The XSLT processor follows the instructions in the Stylesheet. The
instructions can copy, omit, and reorganize data in the source document, as well as add new
data. Figure 3 shows the organization information and designer information in the form of
XSL Stylesheet.

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 Fig. 3 Organization and Designer information in the form of XSL Style sheet
5.5 SERVER/CLIENT INTERACTIONS
Data transfer from individual CAD systems (clients) to Main server or vice versa are
discussed [22] in the following steps:
• Start up of the main server: when the main server starts up, it reads the setting file
for its internet services first. Second, it gets the file name for users’ passwords, and
then it reads the project information for registered users and stores them in the
users’ project manager. Finally, the main server starts up the server socket to wait
for a client’s connection.
• Start up of client Designer: when the client program starts up, it checks:
o The CAD/CAM file folder, in that designer client folder
o The user’s information on the Client side server
o The CAD/CAM file description and their file paths (//CAD _ CAM / Designer/)
Then the main panel window shows and waits for users input. At this time, main panel
accepts only the login operation for a local user to create a connection to the main server. A

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dynamic web page (fig .4) is developed in this work with the use of the Active Server Page
(ASP) and server side scripts using VB-Script.
5.5.1. Different Activities involved during server/client Interaction:
i. Client Designer Logs-in to the main server
ii. Posts file description from client Designer
iii. The main server receives the description file
iv. Client Analyzer sends a request to the main server for browsing the specified file

Fig.4: Web Page (Main Page including login)

6. TESTING OF INTERFACE PROGRAME
The interface program developed is tested with NRB Bearing cover plate Required
Tool developed by EQIC DIES AND MOULDS. This component developed through
different modeling packages individually are saved in STEP format. The designer logins to
the main server and upload these 3D models to main server. At the main server, interface
program separates PDM data from STEP file and converts into XML tags. Now this can be
ready for further communication. One can easily export the 3D model or assembly to
ANSYS. The CAE user logins to the main server and sends queries on 3D model regarding
material properties, types of loads applied, etc. Once the server gets the query from the client
it searches in the database and send the data in XML style sheets. Once the analysis is over
again the results are sent to the server. In the main server, all the information regarding single
model and whole assembly is stored in separate folders. Similarly, one can integrate all the
CAD/CAM/CAE systems using STEP/XML and create collaboration in concurrent
engineering environment. All screenshots are shown in figure 5 to 7.
The users can login to server using default user login page shown in fig.4. If the user
already registers then the user id and password are to be entered to login to the server to
retrieve/upload the information. Other wise the user has to register with minimum
prerequisites like full name, employee id, address, email etc.

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 Fig. 5 Bearing Cover Model designed in CATIA.

Fig. 6 Bearing Cover Model design in Pro-E.

Fig. 7 Meshing of Bearing Cover using Hyper Mesh

Fig.6. shows the Bearing Cover Model generated using ProE software are saved in
STEP format to upload these files.

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 Fig.8. Design Engineer’s Upload Form
Using this web page (fig.8), the design engineer can upload the designed models in the
form of ASCII, STEP and VRML. One can also upload any design constraints in the form of
word document or power point presentation. Fig.9 shows the download information for the
design engineer, by clicking the hyperlinks. Similar procedures and web pages are designed
for the analysis engineer also.

Fig. 9: Designer’s Required Information Web Page

7 CONCLUSIONS:
The present paper points out the characteristics and limitations of current computer
based tools in terms of functionalities for concurrent engineering. Requirements for data
exchange and PDM systems, supporting concurrent engineering as well as possible solutions
meeting these requirements, have been identified and discussed. Modern web based
technology and STEP are selected as the principal enabling technologies and approaches to
facilitate the information in concurrent engineering environment. The proposed program
using these technologies and approaches are implemented and validated through case studies.
The software developed is capable of generating data exchange through web page
communication. Concurrent Engineering Environment requires a shared or autonomous work
space and preferably with the full capability to perform design tasks at early stage of product
development, through a Web page communication is used in this paper to create access,
operates and distributes PDM information on an independent platform. For instance, active
change can identify timely updates introduced by designers and automatically propagate
these updates to others.

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 The aspiration of collaborative product development system is the right information in
the right format for the right people in the right location at the right time. This is achieved by
developing the interface program and web pages in the present work.
Future Work:
Recognizing geometry feature from the CAD models using STEP file and translation
of these features into web pages using XML thereby these pages can be used for CAPP.
Needs some more restrictions, terms and conditions to the login users so that the data
can be protected in the universe.

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