Internet-based intelligent service-oriented system architecture for collaborative product development

Abstract

Collaborative product development is a strategic approach for manufacturing enterprises to succeed in the competitive market. Issues of information and knowledge sharing within the value chain are regarded as the most significant aspect of collaborative product development and the sharing is based on geographically distributed business domains. To support this issue, this paper discusses internet-based intelligent system architecture for collaborative product development built upon service-oriented architecture that is a profitable infrastructure for handling distributed heterogeneous resource sharing. The system utilises basic and extensible services to provide efficient and effective knowledge-sharing functionality on-demand. A Java-enabled solution together with artificial intelligence techniques is employed to develop such a networked system. Finally, a case study is presented to illustrate how the tool and die makers are involved and cooperate with the product designers to make an optimal design collaboratively.