Architecture of the Product State Model Environment

This paper addresses the issue of using product models to support product lifecycle activities with particular focus on the production phase. The motivation of the research is that products are produced more costly and with longer lead-time than necessary. The paper provides a review of product modelling technologies and approaches, and the overall architecture for the Product State Model (PSM) Environment as a basis for quality monitoring. Especially, the paper focuses on the circumstances prevailing in a one-of-a-kind manufacturing environment like the shipbuilding industry, where product modelling technologies already have proved their worth in the design and engineering phases of shipbuilding and in the operation phase. However, the handling of product information on the shop floor is not yet equally developed. The paper reports from the Brite-Euram project (No. BE97-4510) QualiGlobe focusing on the development activities of the PSM architecture. An example discusses how to handle product related information on the shop floor in a manufacturing company and focuses on how dynamically updated product data can improve control of production activities. This prototype example of welding a joint between two steel plates serves as proof of concept for the PSM architecture.