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A review of web-based product data management systems

Liu, D.T. and Xu, X.W. (1999, 1 December). A review of web-based product data management
systems. Computers in Industry, 44, 251-262. Retrieved 14 May, 2012 from
<http://www.sciencedirect.com/>

This article is about product data management (PDM) that based on web-technologies. It
is a tool that integrates and manages all the information that defines a product, from design to
manufacture and to the end-user support. This PDM is build to help the company to prevent
from lack of consistent and stable IT requirements for various groups. So, the processes
become vary from company to company and it is predictable that the derived IT requirements
are complex and conflicting and constantly evolving. In addition, this PDM makes the extended
enterprise has dynamic boundaries that makes the requirements and also the constituents of
the requirements vary. Other than that, PDM centralized administration is no longer a feasibility
solution. So, all of the business units are independently responsible for their own success.
The complex and dynamic environment can be handled using PDM solutions and from
the help of web-technology, it enables people from all departments, divisions and supply chains
to participate in design, development, and process stages of the product throughout its life
cycle. This PDM system are used to control information, files, documents and work processes
required to design, build, support, distribute and maintain product. Besides that, it is provide the
typical product-related information includes geometry, engineering drawings, project plans, part
files, assembly diagrams, product specifications, numerical control machine-tool programs,
analysis results, correspondence, bills of materials and many more. PDM become and
integration tool connecting many different areas, which ensures that the right information is
available to the right person at the right time and in the right form throughout the enterprise.
This system can help users by data vault and document management, workflow and
process management, product structure management, parts management and also program
management. Furthermore, it has communication capabilities such as links to e-mail provide for
information transfer and event notification. Internet and web-technology are reshaping the PDM
software business. It had barely made a dent in the way engineering companies managed
information. Nowadays, HTML or Java-based web user interfaces and web-based server
access are increasingly becoming the norm for PDM systems.
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They are many advantages of utilizing web-based technologies in PDM systems which
are user friendliness that made them more user-friendly and easier to interact with, greater
accessibility and applicability that utilized web browsers as PDM interface is incredibility cost-
effective, simple to comprehend, and capable of supporting almost all users, effective linking to
the supply chain that have a great advantage over non-web-based systems, effective linking to
geographically diverse organizations that allows geographically diverse teams to work
simultaneously on the same project and lastly making virtual organization possible that defined
as a temporary union of companies that possess expertise in a specific field and gather for a
particular project. Browsers that used are same with World Wide Web (WWW) such as
Microsoft Explorer, Netscape Navigator and so on for accessing data on the Internet as well as
on Intranet.
The PDM products are available on the market which is steadily increasing mainly due to
quicker and easier implementation. The result of this article based on the statistics on the
current and potential PDM users in manufacturing industry, it shows that 13 per cent are
upgrading, 17 per cent are implementing system, 3 per cent are implementing pilot, 7 per cent
are selecting vendors, 16 per cent are evaluating vendor, 37 per cent are evaluating and 7 per
cent are unclassified. Some currently available web-based PDM products and their industrial
applications have been reviewed in the following sections. They are also some evidence from
some web-based PDM products in industry today. For example, Raytheon Aircraft Co. is used
PDM system to manage CATIA CAD information, host-based MRP system, and bills of material.
After all of the implementation, Raytheon has been able to reduce the product development
overall cycle, because parts and assemblies fit more accurately the first time. So, it proved that
PDM becomes more adaptive and flexible if running on the web infrastructure. It will enhance
each others capabilities and performance.
This article is easy to understand and it is advance our knowledge to get more
information about the database connectivity and web technologies. The authors, D. Tony Liu
and X. William Xu are expressed all of the emotional to make the readers of this article to know
more about the PDM system that similar to the others web technologies. So, it will attract all of
the readers to read it until the end of the article.
In the nutshell, this product data management (PDM) concerns with the use of web-
based technologies. The objective of this paper which is to review PDM technology in general
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and discuss the web-based PDM system in particular is achieved. Lastly, all of the readers of
this article may understand more about the database connectivity and web technologies.