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Application of PLM Processes to Respond to Mechanical SMEs Needs

Article · November 2010

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-15973-2_31 · Source: arXiv

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 Application of PLM processes to respond to mechanical SMEs needs.

Julien Le Duigou1, Alain Bernard1, Nicolas Perry2, Jean-Charles Delplace3

1
IRCCyN, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, 1 rue de la Noë, 44321 Nantes Cedex 03, France
[email protected], [email protected]
2
LGM2B, Université de Bordeaux1, 15 rue Naudet, 33175 Gradignan Cedex, France
[email protected]
3
Centre technique des industries mécaniques, 57 avenue Félix Louat, 60304 Senlis Cedex, France
[email protected]

Abstract
PLM is today a reality for mechanical SMEs. Some companies implement PLM systems very well but others
have more difficulties. This paper aims to explain why some SMEs do not success to integrated PLM
systems analyzing the needs of mechanical SMEs, the processes to implement to respond to those needs
and the actual PLM software functionalities. The proposition of a typology of those companies and the
responses of those needs by PLM processes will be explain through the applications of a demonstrator
applying appropriate generic data model and modelling framework.

Keywords:
Product Lifecycle Management, Product-Process modelling, Information System.

1 INTRODUCTION creation of a new product. SMEs have to produce new

Due to globalisation, the enterprises have to work in products with the existing work centres, which is not the
networks more and more diversified and geographically case for the firms from automobile or aeronautical sectors
dispersed. To allow this, optimizing the cost, quality and where a new production line can be create for the creation
delay, enterprises implement new information and of a new product. It is quite the same for technologies
communication technologies. The mechanical SMEs are used and the organization that do not change with the
in the same logical. But those enterprises, even if they are arrival of a new product. The services are not taken into
more flexible, have difficulties in front of those new account by mechanical SMEs, maybe because they are
possibilities of exchange and share of information. not yet in charge of the maintenance and end of life of
their product or because they have to manage the
PLM systems are one solution to structure and share definition of their product before manage their
product information. Nevertheless, in 2007, only 3% of maintenance or their end of life.
those enterprises have implemented such a system [1, 2].
Our hypothesis is that the functionalities of the actual PLM is support by business software. The PLM systems
systems do not feat with the needs of those enterprises. help to pass the product definition information from one
business solution to another (Figure 1). Interoperability
This paper introduces first the functionalities of PLM and modularity are important issues in those systems [6].
systems. Section 3 explains our research approach based It encapsulates and then diffuses the information for the
on immersions in mechanical SMEs from a PLM product development. It is realized by links between the
dedicated typology. Then the needs of those companies PLM systems and the other software (Figure 1), as CAD,
are identified, the processes to respond to those needs CAM, ERP, SCM… It ensures the traceability [5], the
are formalised and finally the application of a archiving [7] and the reuse [8] of information.
demonstrator based on a generic model is proposed.
Discussion and perspectives conclude this paper.

2 PLM PROCESSES
CimData [3] define the PLM as “a strategic business
approach that applies a consistent set of business
solutions in support of the collaborative creation,
management, dissemination and use of product definition
information across the extended enterprise from concept
to end of life - integrating people, processes, business
system, and information”. The actual definitions of PLM [4,
5] focus on the product data, but do not include the
processes management notion. To improve that point, the
following definition centred on the activities is proposed:
“PLM is a business strategy to manage on a collaborative
way the product centred activities during the whole
lifecycle and across the extended enterprise”.
PLM encompass not only the definition of the product, but
also the definition of the product lines, of the technologies
used, of the organization, of services associated to the
product (services during it use, but also during it
maintenance, it end of life…). In a mechanical SMEs Figure 1: PLM and business software
context, the production lines are not redefined with the
 systems. The product information are then in the BoM.
The PLM systems offer numerous functionalities, the most For the enterprises of which the products have a few
classical are: components work on the manufacturing of the parts. The
product information are then in the routings.
Vault: the data and documents are stocked in a server.
The data are stocked in a database and structured So the proposed typology has as differentiation axis the
through the data model implement in the database. number of components per product. The different
companies are grouped according to the number of
Right access: the user must have sufficient right access to components of the products that they design and/or
operate on the data (read, modify, validate…). produce (Figure 3).
Check in / check out: the user must check out the
document before modified it. Then he checks in the
modified document. This assures that two users cannot
modify a document at the same time.
Versioning: it traces the change of a document or a data.
At a second level, a revision serves to trace major
modifications.
Notification: notification is the sending of an email with a
link to the data or document subject of the email.
Automatic notification for change, validation… is called
subscription.
Workflow: this system simulates processes and
automates some activities of the process. It is principally Figure 3: Typology of mechanical SMEs
use for documentation processes like validation.
State: they are associated to document and define their Three types of companies are obtained:
maturity level (creation, in validation, validated, obsolete).
 The companies producing equipments.
Actual tools are mainly dedicated to documentation and
communication management. The possibility to automate  The companies producing components.
and manage activities more business oriented is not in the  The companies producing craft parts.
actual functionalities. SMEs are looking for more
The equipment manufacturers are companies of which
advanced business functionalities.
the products contain numerous components. They
Notice that the majority of the works done on PLM are produce special machines, agricultural machines,
related to firm, often automobile or aeronautic assemblers stevedoring machines… they have problematic about
[9, 10, 11]. Deductive approaches are used to integrate BoM management and traceability, well known of the PLM
SMEs in the assemblers’ point of view. An inductive systems because they match to the needs of the big firms
approach will be more appropriated to include SMEs of the automobile and aeronautic sectors which introduce
needs. those software. The solutions to implement are lighter and
less complex than the big firms’ solutions.
3 RESEARCH APPROACH The component manufacturers are companies of which
To propose processes and functionalities appropriate to the product contains a medium number of components.
SMEs to structure and to exchange product information, These enterprises design and/or produce compressors
our approach inverse the traditional V cycle. It starts with and motors, tools, transmissions (hydraulic, mechanic or
a first inductive and raising step to formalise the needs pneumatic)… They have various needs from the
and the processes to implement. The second step is customer needs analysis to the manufacturing.
deductive and downing to validate the propositions (Figure The craft parts manufacturers have a few components in
2). their products. They produce discrete parts from the
forging, foundry, machining, drawing… these enterprises
have problematic about the routings management.
After have apply the approach on three different
enterprises, the result is three needs’ maps, three
processes models and three data models [12, 13]. The
aggregation of those results permits to define a generic
model for the mechanical SMEs (Figure 4).

Figure 2: Research approach

From the diversity of the mechanical SMEs, this section

proposed a typology to class those enterprises in function
of their PLM problematic.
The main technical information link to the product
development to manage at an enterprise level is in the Bill
of Materials (BoM) and in the routings. The predominant
use of one or the other intermediary object depends of the
number of components per products of the enterprise.
Indeed the enterprises of which the products have a
numerous components work on the assembly of sub-
 Moreover it is necessary to reach this level of detail in the
three companies to be able to generalize appropriately
the processes. Indeed the same intermediaries are in
several companies, continuing their life cycle passing
from a company to another. This exchange of
intermediaries allows linking the processes from one
company to another, like in an extended enterprise.

Figure 4: Generalisation approach

4 APPLICATION OF PLM PROCESSES

4.1 Identification of the needs
The principal problems of each enterprise were identified
in [12, 13]. A list of PLM needs is created from those
immersions. The needs retain in the list are those which
are not fully implement in the actual PLM systems. Figure 5: PLM processes
Following our study, six classes of needs are identified:
Configuration management: it comes from the equipment The global process Figure 5 is a development process. It
part manufacturers. The PLM systems must manage the includes the need analysis, the design and the
alternative, the options, the versions, the families and the industrialization. The production, the sale, the distribution
differentiation between internal and external products. and the end of life of the product are not covert by this
process which is focus on the SMEs context. As explain
Collaboration: the exchange with the customers (for the previously, the mechanical SMEs do not express the wish
parts and components manufacturers) and with the to include those processes.
suppliers (for the components and equipments
manufacturers) must be facilitated and standardized, To manage those processes, an appropriate data model
especially for the CAD files exchanges. is required. The objects to include in the data model are
those used by the processes and which appear as input
Multiple views: the information has to be visible with the and output of the activities.
structure and the names of each department. It is
particularly need for the BoM in design and production
departments, corresponding to the structures of the CAD 4.3 Realisation of the processes
and the ERP. The model generalizes the objects used in the pilot
Routing management: the raw parts manufacturers need companies to obtain generic objects. The semantic
that the routings and the whole information that it includes alignment was the principal difficulty. One object can be
(operations, work centres, tools…) could be manage from named differently depending of the enterprise. The fact
the PLM systems. that one consultant have done the three models makes
Interoperability: the interoperability with the ERP and the easier the concatenation of the objects. The generic
CAD is asked from the three types of SMEs, especially for objects are represented in the UML class diagram Figure
the BoM and routing update. 6.
Decision aid indicators: the cost is the indicator the most The different identified objects are the activity, the
asked, to choice between alternative products for the product, the material, the function, the resource, the
equipments manufacturers or to choice between trigger, the organization and the document. The activity
alternative operations in a routing for the raw parts specializes into task and operation, the organization into
manufacturers. customer and supplier and the resource into material,
human and software resource. More explanations about
Those needs have to be resolve by the PLM systems to the generic model are in [14].
interest the mechanical SMEs. The processes implement
in the pilot enterprises solve those needs. The
generalisation of those processes should help to solve the
generic needs.

4.2 Formalisation of the processes

The processes covert by the pilot companies could be
aggregate to represent a complete development product
in an extended enterprise.
The required level of detail of the SADT makes appear the
intermediaries. To know the processes of creation, use
and decommission of those intermediaries in the
information system, it is necessary to know those
processes in the real life with the same level of detail.
 Figure 8: Demonstrator’s architecture

Figure 6: Class diagram of the generic model

The proposed generic model is implemented in the
demonstrator, with the generic classes, attributes and
The objects at the generic level are not enough specific to methods. Each class is specialisable in sub-class,
be really useful in a particular company. A framework that inheriting of the attributes and methods of the father
proposed an instantiation of the generic model is class. New attributes could be added to the new class. A
proposed to match with the particular objects of each new specialization is applicable to the sub-classes and so
enterprise keeping a high level semantic alignment. on.
Based on modelling approaches like CIMOSA or GERAM The interface is constitued of a tool bar, a treeview, a
[15, 16], the framework proposes a system with needs, fileview, a data card and a viewer (Figure 9).
processes and data model coherent for the three pilot
enterprises. Figure 7 shows a cube representing the
framework. The abscissa represents the three results of
the modelling method: the needs map, the processes
model and the data model. The ordinate represents the
instantiation of the three components, the generic, partial
or particular levels. And the depth represents the different
views of the systems, process, information, resource and
organization.
The generic model proposes a union of the views process,
information and resource. It also integrated the
organizational view that coordinates the other views. This
axe notices the different views that are modelled, even if
they are all integrated in the generic model.

Figure 9: Demonstrator’s interface

5 APPLICATION OF THE DEMONSTRATOR

The application is chosen to cover the maximum of
identified needs. The study needs are: the configuration
management, the link with the supplier, the multiple
views, the link with the CAD and ERP, the routings
management and the cost indicator.
The configuration management is partially covered by
actual PLM systems. It is principally a request from the
equipment manufacturer. The creation of product family
and the differentiation between internal and external
products is nevertheless simplified in the demonstrator.
To create a product family, the user right clicks on the
generic class of product on the treeview and select new.
Figure 7: Modelling framework A new sub-class (a family of product) is created, inheriting
of the attributes of the product class plus the new that the
user defines for this family. Each product create in this
A software demonstrator is created to automate the use of family will obtain the attribute of the family. Sub family can
the framework in an industrial context. The architecture of be created reproducing the same method on a family.
the demonstrator is a rich client/ server (Figure 8). The The internal and external products are in the referential of
client is developed in VB.Net and the server uses MS the enterprise with different colours (yellow for the internal
SQL Server. They communicate through SQL requests products and green for the external products). The
via http/https. external product can be taken directly from the supplier
PLM systems. The different suppliers identified are
present in a specific folder. A drag and drop from a The interoperability of the PLM systems with the CAD and
component of the supplier to the demonstrator imports the the ERP are the most important link to create [18].
product, all the attributes and the attached files. For the CAD link, the designer imports the assembly
The composition of a product is not the same depending treeview of the product with a drag and drop of the CAD
of the user’s work in the enterprise. There is no universal file from the office to the demonstrator. The CAD treeview
view appropriate for all the business units and each is then copied in the structure view. The components are
business view gives advantages to their users. In the created and the corresponding CAD files are imported in
present work, three views are retained: functional, the right component objects. With the import of the CAD
structural and manufacturing [17]. file, a link is created between the CAD attributes and the
In the structure view (Figure 10), the components of the object attributes (for the attributes with the same name in
product are decomposed in the treeview. To obtain a the CAD system and in the demonstrator). Those
functional view, the user has to change the view clicking attributes are then synchronized. The implementation is
on the function button. Then he can create functions done on SolidWorks from Dassault Systems.
under the product (the internal functions) and add in the The manufacturing view can be synchronised with the
components of the product (the functions of service of the ERP of the enterprise to obtain BoM and routings up to
components). So the product is decomposed from a date. A mapping with an ERP is implemented in the
functional point of view. demonstrator. It synchronised the items, the operations,
In the manufacturing view, the assembling operations are the work centres, and all their respective attributes,
linking to the product and to the component (Figure 11). It updating the BoM and the routings. This is done on the
gives a manufacturing structure of the product through a ERP EFACS from EXEL Computer System, using the
product – assembly – component decomposition of the data base Informix from IBM.
product. The management of the routings directly in the PLM
In each view, some objects can be added separately. The systems is a wish of the components and raw parts
object is visible in the selected view and not in the others. manufacturers.
It could be the case for the addition of grease in the To create a routing, the user creates the different
manufacturing BoM that do not have to be visible in the operations in the product (Figure 12). He can define
design BoM. optional operations, alternative operations and external
operations (appearing in green and not in yellow as the
internal operations). Then he loads the resources useful
to each operation dropping the input items, the work
centres, the tools…

Figure 10: Structural decomposition of a grinding

machine Figure 12: Routing of a crankshaft

The indicator the most requests for aid design and

industrialisation in SMEs is the cost of the product,
including the cost of the manufacturing processes.
The cost notion is present in the demonstrator. To have
an estimation of the cost of a product, the user must
create the routing of its product. It includes the
components, the work centres and all the other
consumables. Then the cost of each operation, each work
centres and each component of the lower level of his
decomposition is filled. Then the demonstrator calculates
the estimated cost of the product.

6 DISCUSSION
The contribution of this work is in two parts: in one hand
Figure 11: Manufacturing decomposition of a the identification of the needs of mechanical SMEs in
grinding machine terms of PLM, and in the other the resolution of those
needs based on a generic data model.
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8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
16th CIRP international conference on Life Cycle
We would like to thanks PSL CONCEPT, CAPRICORN Engineering, 04-06 mai 2009, Le Caire, Égypte.
and SMP companies for allowing us to carry out our study
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