Integration av PLM och CAD i komplex produktutveckling
En utredning av Scanias framtida systemmiljö för produktdatahantering
In today's producing companies, there is a high demand on early integrated productdevelopment. One way to facilitate communication between departments and collaborationbetween people and thereby enable early sharing of product information within the companyis to use PLM, Product Lifecycle Management.The CAD environment at Scania is at the moment being upgraded from Catia v4 to Catiav5. In this stage it is important that also the interacting computer systems in Scania?s PLMenvironment are adjusted and in the future join the development. Scania has an idea of howthese systems will be developed as the transition from Catia v4 to Catia v5 is being carriedout. They are planning to replace the part of ModArc that concerns CAD with Enovia LCA.These, along with other interacting computer systems, are described in more detail in thereport.As the computer systems that concern CAD are being upgraded the product data modelwill change. The aim of this thesis is to describe as well as examine this new product datamodel, regarding mechanical components. The thesis also contains a description of thepossibilities and restrictions, both technical and work method related, that the data modelgives rise to. Furthermore a proposal on improvement measures is produced.In addition to literature studies three different starting points were chosen to underlie thethesis: deliberations with employees at Scania with knowledge about the computer systems,contemporary technical studies of other companies and interviews with system users atScania. Further more an abductive approach was chosen which means an alternating review oftheoretical and empirical results so that knowledge from both sources gradually arereinterpreted until a conclusion is drawn.When the results were analysed a number of proposals emerged on technical improvementmeasures that Scania should have in mind when the new computer system environment isdesigned. Among other things, Scania?s product structure and product data should only haveone source each. Descriptions in other computer systems then have to be based on the givensource, this in order to make sure no inaccurate copies will be available in the computersystems. Further more, a need for a three dimensional model tied to every blueprint and avarying need of the product structure's description in Spectra was identified. During theanalysis, proposals on work method related improvement measures were also observed. Forone thing, the procedures for naming a product structure breakdown as well as the procedureconcerning exchange of classified information with suppliers, should be looked into. The needof three dimensional data in other departments besides construction was also noticed,something which could bring the department entirely new possibilities in its daily work.Finally, the importance of a short period of coexistence between the old and new versions ofScania?s computer system environment is elucidated.