System architecture for collaborative product development

Many companies are shifting to a manufacturing approach where the majority of the activities are outsourced to multiple companies as part of a geographically distributed supply chain. The use of this kind of approach results in the need of distance product development, which in turn requires the provision of product life cycle information and knowledge in the place, time and format required. In response to this need the research community has come with a solution called Collaborative Product Development (CPD) System. In order to have an effective CPD system it is necessary to have an optimum computer system architecture able to handle the information and knowledge necessary to support distance collaborative product development. In this paper, a system architecture that addresses the requirements defined by both the research and industrial community is presented. Such system architecture will facilitate not only the collaboration among the partners but also the provision of knowledge involved in product development. This paper presents the research issues emerged from both the industrial field study and literature survey. Furthermore, the proposed system architecture is described in detail. Finally, discussion for further work and conclusions are presented.