Information models to support reconfigurable manufacturing systems design

Information models (IM) is a significant issue to support the design of reconfigurable manufacturing systems (DRMS). The integration of manufacturing information models and Product Life Cycle Management (PLM) tools enhance the decision making process during the design of a reconfigurable manufacturing system. A suitable integration of PLM tools and information models are needed to improve the performance to design reconfigurable manufacturing systems and to provide digital collaboration infrastructures to support DRMS. This paper presents a novel approach to support the design and development of reconfigurable manufacturing systems through the integration of IM and PLM tools. The main purpose of the information models is to structure the information related to the product and manufacturing system in order to speed up the design, development and implementation of new reconfigurable manufacturing systems. A case study is developed in the automotive industry to demonstrate how the proposed approach is implemented.