Chapter 2: Collaborative Product Development

Title: New interface management tools and strategies for complex products

Author(s): Keyvan Rahmani, Vincent Thomson

Address: Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada | Department of Mechanical Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2009 pp. 84 - 94

Abstract/Summary: In this paper, an interface management model for multidisciplinary products is proposed with the aim of improving communication between design groups with respect to product data. Using a functional representation of products is suggested to have well defined subsystems. When the product structure is designed, the interfaces between its subsystems can be defined using the systematic methodology proposed in this paper. Having a systematic methodology to define interfaces is the first step towards standardizing them. With well-defined interfaces, the number of incompatible design decisions can be reduced. This will reduce new product development time and facilitate subsystem changes. The paper also shows a formal way of modeling interface objects with the purpose of integrating them into product lifecycle management (PLM) software. Interfaces are modeled using object oriented technology since this parallels the object nature of product data and since object technology provides a formalism to integrate interface data into PLM software.

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