Web-based product and process data modelling in concurrent "design for X"

This paper is concerned with employing the web technology for concurrent modelling of product and process data on the Internet. This is one of the essential tasks of an attempt to develop a generic web-based Design for X (DFX) shell which can be tailored or extended to develop and apply a variety of DFX tools easily, quickly and consistently. The emphasis is placed on the use of a number of formal but pragmatic constructs. Bills of materials are used to describe and analyse the overall product structure and characteristics. Flow process charts are used to describe and analyse the overall process structure and characteristics. Standard operation process charts are modified to describe and analyse the interactions between the overall product and process structures. These concepts have already been widely used by practitioners or at least are familiar to various personnel involved in product development. They are coded as reusable ActiveX components that can be easily deployed in the DFX shell. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.