Identification and Categorization of Assembly Information for Collaborative Product Realization

Information exchange is a fundamental process for manufacturing enterprises, especially when the product data needs to be exchanged between different domains, areas, or external suppliers during the product lifecycle. Lack of standardized information management processes, undefined information requirements from both parties, and incompatible formats to exchange information lead to delays in product development and therefore, economic losses. An alternative that has demonstrated benefits when carrying product manufacturing information is the Model-based definition (MBD) approach. A preparatory step to structure an MBD application for a specific domain is to define its data content, which can be built upon a categorization of product requirements for the target domain. The presented study proposes a method that starts by studying the interactions between involved stakeholders and the related information exchanged at each stage of the development of a component, and results in a categorization of requirements to support assembly planning, enhancing product realization. Enhanced product realization can lead to shorter development time, better supplier compliance to the requirements, and fewer errors in the physical interfaces. Future work is to use the categorized requirements as a base to build an MBD structure for exchanging assembly-related information.