The Product Configuration Management In The Phosphor CPDM System

Nowadays more and more modern enterprises try to focus on the ITtechnology to realize the optimization of enterprise management . There ismore panegyric on PDM ( Product Data Management ) among themanufacturing industries , because the main objects here are products andproduct structures . The pith and marrow of PDM , for example documentmanagement , product structure management , workflow management ,lifecycle management and so on , can manage many kinds of informationrelated with the product effectively . In the past few years , these coretechnologies have been developing into the mature means that manage theproduct data of manufacture enterprise .Along with the rise of e-business and the increase in consumer specialneed , the conventional fixed products and product structures can not satisfythe requirement . On the one hand , the enterprise should repair the design ofproduct according to the consumer need ; On the other hand , the designdepartment should design the new product that support the change later .Therefore , manufacture enterprise is in urgent need of a new managementtechnology to manage the changeful information . It is well known that CM( Configuration Management ) might deal with quantitative change andqualitative change , if apply the theory of CM to PDM , that problem willbeen solved , this is the definition of the Product ConfigurationManagement .Phosphor cPDM System based on the standard J2EE three-layerframework is the enterprise PDM software , and it adopts the latest PDM idea—cPDM ( collaborative Product Definition Management ) which supportsthe collaborative operation , the collaborative product commerce , theenterprise application integration and so on . Phosphor cPDM Systemconsists of five layers : core-base layer , base-technology layer ,core-function layer , application layer and whole-solution layer . As a moduleof the application layer , the Product Configuration Management can utilizethe base services .This paper mainly introduces the design and realization of the ProductConfiguration Management in the Phosphor cPDM System , includes : thedesign of data model , the design of service , the design of transport data andthe design of client . The Product Configuration Management in the PhosphorcPDM System is divided into three function modules : configurationspecification management , product configurater management and colorconfigurate management . These three aspects realize different configurationfunctions of the product configuration , thus the Product ConfigurationManagement could supply the complete solution . Configuration specification management manages the change of theexistent design of product , filters out the concrete edition of every part in theproduct structure under the special specification , thereby establishing theconfiguration information of the product . There are three configurationspecification : view configuration specification which get the latest edition ofevery part in the product structure during some lifecycle phase ; baselineconfiguration specification which get the effective edition of every part in theproduct structure at a time ; effectivity configuration specification which getthe effective edition of every part in the product structure on the restriction ofeffectivity parameter , such as edition number , series number , batch numberand date . Product configurater management supports the develop of the newproduct on designing the parameterized part which has many varieties andbuilding the variable product structure model which is called varietyconfiguration , it is divided into three sub-modules : configuration modelermodule , order creator module and product register module . Configurationmodeler module can define the parameterized part and the varietyconfiguration , the designer should determine the parameters and therestrictions on the use of these parameters which is called configurater rule . Order creator module assembles the dynamic interface depending on theparameters of a variety configuration , collects the inputs and delivers theseparameter values to the configurater-rule enginer . Then the enginer analyzesthe relation of these values depending on the configurater rules of this varietyconfiguration . If all values are rational , order creator will show the resultsand save the result as the variety specification of database . The varietyspecification is the important transport data from order creator to productregister , and it uses XML to record the result . Product register creates the product structure which been described inthe variety specification but not exist in enterprise database . If this productstructure registers and becomes a part of the Phosphor cPDM System , it willexecute base services related with the part , and that the parameter whichexplain the characteristic and its value of this product structure will becomethe attribute and attribute value of the new part . Color configrurate management is a special function module of thePhosphor cPDM System , and it mainly manage color , part with color andcolor combination . It is raised by the following reasons : 1 the surface colorof the part has many information ; 2 the surface color cannot decide thestructure of the part ; 3 the consumer need will influence frequently on thesurface color . There are four sub-modules : color tune management which define thecolor combination , it might distinguish between internal color tune andexternal color tune; color tune combination management which define theinternal and external color tune of the part or the series part ; color samplemanagement which define the attributes of the color ; color part managementwhich define the restriction of the part with color in some productstructure .Here the color part is the part whose color flag attribute in thedatabase is true , and this attribute is to show if this part has color .The colorrestriction is the restriction of the color part in some product structure , suchas its color sample , its color tune combination and its site . User can usecolor configrurate management to get the report of the product structurewhich has the information of part and color , and the concrete edition ofevery part in this product structure is filtered under the special configurationspecification . While this module is a customization one for a specialmanufacture enterprise , but its function is so useful that it will becomes a...