Product data allocation for distributed product data management system

In today's distributed manufacturing environment, how to manage the product data and distributing it to the right people who need it is critical to the success of a company. A distributed product data management (DPDM) system is thus required to manage product data distribution and product data integrity throughout the product life cycle. In this paper, a product data object is the logical unit of distribution in a DPDM system. Replication and migration techniques are discussed and employed in object distribution. Since the allocation of an object in a distributed manufacturing environment is a critical issue in a DPDM system, an optimal object allocation policy is needed. Therefore, object allocation objectives for DPDM are set to facilitate object replication and migration decision making. A comprehensive mathematical modeling approach is developed for product data object distribution within a DPDM system. Also, a distributed object-oriented database architecture is proposed for the DPDM system's use. Object-oriented databases were proposed to meet the needs of advanced technical applications, such as CAD/CAM, CAE, etc. where most of these applications are also run in a distributed environment. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.