A framework for web-based product data management using J2EE

Because eManufacturing is motivated by the emerging need for distant collaborative design required among R&D centres and manufacturers of global-based enterprises, web-based product data management becomes an essential tool for realising the technology. In this paper, the design of a web-basedproductdatamanagement (WPDM) system is presented. The developed WPDM is aimed at achieving the goal of eManufacturing by providing an effective tool for product database management through the Internet utilising JAVA and J2EE technologies. In our scenarios, all the involved engineering and management team members who need WPDM are inherently located dispersedly. The ultimate goal is to optimise product cycle time and upgrade a traditional PDM system to face the challenge of the new era of global business competition. Basically, the proposed WPDM is developed in such a way that it allows designers/users to create, view and manipulate product data through the World Wide Web, while founding the architecture of the web application on a three-tier client/server system. The current WPDM of our design mainly uses servlets and JSP to handle user inputs and manage and retrieve product data from the database through the JDBC driver, with the server components stored on a middleware program called Tomcat. Within this environment, all parties involved in product design and manufacture can access the WPDM log-in page with the given URL after a successful identity authorisation. Consequently, these users can create, search and/or manipulate the desired engineering data through the enabled WPDM. The WPDM developed in this work has been experimentally tested in the lab.