Activity modelling in a collaborative ceramic tile design chain: an enhanced IDEF0 approach

Explicit descriptions of should-be and to-be activities and processes are key elements in implementing industrial projects aimed at improving new-product development (NPD) processes, especially when e-collaboration utilities are used in a Virtual-Project-Enterprise context (i.e., a project developed in a virtual enterprise). In our work, centred in ceramic clusters, the prior construction of reference enterprise activity models, like our ‘CEramic Design Activity Model’ (CEDAM), is important for the success of such projects, because it allows setting the system functional requirements (specially PLM functionalities). CEDAM constitutes a core element of the ‘Enterprise Model for the Implementation of Collaborative Design Systems’ (EMICS), which was developed by the authors with the intention of making it valid for ceramic clusters. Those models are represented through our enhanced IDEF0 approach (IDEF0+), which helped us to identify the opportunities to improve the modelling quality of the collaborative processes and to guide the reengineering process.