Chapter 5: Collaborative Environments

Title: Web-based collaboration systems and strategy for managing product, production and process of Korean SMEs

Author(s): Kwangyeol Ryu, Haksoo Mok, Jeonghoon Shin, Seokwoo Lee, Honzong Choi

Address: Department of Industrial Engineering, Pusan National University, San30, Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, South Korea | Department of Industrial Engineering, Pusan National University, San30, Jangjeon-dong, Geumjeong-gu, Busan 609-735, South Korea | i-Manufacturing Center, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Sa3-dong, Sangrok-gu, Geyonggi-do 426-910, South Korea | i-Manufacturing Center, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Sa3-dong, Sangrok-gu, Geyonggi-do 426-910, South Korea | i-Manufacturing Center, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Sa3-dong, Sangrok-gu, Geyonggi-do 426-910, South Korea

Reference: International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management 2009 pp. 265 - 276

Abstract/Summary: Unpredictable customer needs strongly require for manufacturing enterprises to produce quality products satisfying cost and time constraints. To cope with such dynamically changing manufacturing environment and to get higher competitiveness, the manufacturing industry needs to equip with advanced technologies including IT as well as substantial infrastructure, 'i-Manufacturing' is the name of the project funded by the Korea government, and it is also the strategy for achieving manufacturing innovation in Korea. The most basic but important concept of the i-Manufacturing is 'collaboration'. As a part of the project, we are developing various kinds of web-based collaboration systems for managing product and production information as well as processes. We applied IT into conventional manufacturing industry by developing strategic business models and collaboration systems. As a consequence, many Korean SMEs are currently using nine different collaboration systems and they are reducing manufacturing cost and delivery time while increasing product quality and profit. In this paper, therefore, we first introduce the i-Manufacturing and collaboration systems we have developed. The functions for managing product, production, and processes as well as the strategy for evolving manufacturing innovation will also be described with case studies.

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