PLM and Design Education A Collaborative Experimen
PLM and Design Education A Collaborative Experimen
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Philippe Véron
Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers
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1 Introduction
One of the most important changes in design habits in the first decade of the 21th century
is the phenomenon of Business Process Outsourcing also known as BPO, experienced by
various professions [1]. In order to give to mechanical engineering students a first view
of the extent of globalization, many Schools of Engineering have integrated within their
training programs, design projects involving students as participants [2-5].
The main question from here is : "How can we, as engineering educators, respond to
global demands to make our students more productive, effective learners?" and how can
PLM help us to achieve this goal?
The Product Lifecycle Management approach to the manufacturing of complex goods
is now considered as one of the major technological and organizational challenges of this
decade, to cope with the shortening of product lifecycles [6]. Thus, design education has
changed in order to provide students with some experience in collaborative design during
their studies. Moreover, PLM can also be a solution to face one of the main problems in
our educational system: the fragmentation of the knowledge and its lack of depth [1].
Virtual Co-location
Development of design teams
Physical Co-location
Members are operating in
physical proximity
Project Team
Members are not physically co-located
« Over-the-wall »
Design activities are fulfilled
sequentially
3.3 PLM
In the early 2000s, PLM emerged as a solution to adapt industrial design to the demands
of globalization. Indeed, as PLM addresses the entire lifecycle of the product, it has a
cross-functional nature and deals closely with the way a company runs [6]. Collaborative
design has been the subject of numerous studies. With the development of PDM (Product
Data Management), PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) and associated workflows,
software firms have proposed solutions to the everyday problems of engineering design
departments (versioning of documents, naming etc.). Product Lifecycle Management
aims to cover all development stages of a product, by integrating processes and people
taking part in the project [13]. This concept is generally used on industrial products. For
Amann [14], over the past several years, PLM has emerged as a term to describe a
business approach for the creation, management, and use of product-associated
intellectual capital and information throughout the product lifecycle. Thus, PLM is an
approach in which processes are just as important as data, or even more so. The PLM
approach can be viewed as a trend toward a full integration of all software tools taking
part in design and operational activities during a product life cycle [6, 15]. Therefore,
PLM software packages need product data management system; synchronous and
asynchronous, local and remote collaboration tools; and if necessary, a digital
infrastructure allowing exchanges between software programs.
Several important challenges, however, must be met if one is to integrate PLM tools
within design education.
Segonds, Maranzana, Véron, Aoussat
4 Experimentation
created in Catia. The overall schedule was also frozen during this first meeting. The
overall project methodology implemented in the course of this project is illustrated in
Figure 2 below.
Renault vehicles (see Figure 3). The headlamp is made of a block that performs the
logical functions, and includes the low beam headlight and directional headlight located
at the bottom. From a real directional headlight, the objective was to achieve the design
of this mechanism through a collaboration between the two teams, using the
“collaborative” and “engineering toolboxes”. The DMU was then animated to visualize
the trajectory of the light beam on CAD software, according to the input references, i.e.
mainly the angle of the steering wheel. The project began with a stage aiming to structure
the team [22]. The distribution of the parts to redesign between the two teams could be
considered according to two modes: either a functional division, leading to design
modules associated with functions which are then assembled together, or a division based
on the local expertise of stakeholders, which suited well the needs of such a short project.
For example, surface reconstruction from a 3D data cloud, which is necessary to design
the frontal pane of glass, requires expertise that was only present in Paris. For this reason,
the second alternative was chosen.
5 Results
Data relating to collaboration were identified by a method of semi-structured interview.
The interviews for Team B took place in conference calls, those for Team A were held
face to face. Two series of interviews were carried out. All participants were interviewed
in French, recorded and analyzed subsequently. General impressions about the project,
shared at the final defense, were gathered and recorded in video.
Questions posed in the first interview concerned three topics. First, the ease with
which participants “got to grips” with the tools at hand. Then, the types of intermediate
representations (IR), which are every representation which appears during the design
process, from its beginning to its end. [20], and collaborative tools used throughout the
project. And finally, a question at the end of the interview allowed students to express an
open opinion regarding which criteria should be used to improve the working
environment and collaboration.
The second interview allowed us to use the criteria thus identified by the students, to
establish a list of high-priority actions to improve the collaborative work environment. A
Segonds, Maranzana, Véron, Aoussat
choice was made to focus on the three sources of dissatisfaction most mentioned by
students.
After analyzing the data collected in these interviews, we present the results of the
collaborative activities carried out in our project. We also propose some paths for
improvement, in defining an optimized software platform to support collaboration in
design education.
Figure 4 Use percentages for various collaboration tools, comparing Brown‟s results [23] with
those from our project.
The industrial practices in design collaboration observed by Brown and by ourselves are
broadly similar. Firstly, email remains a widely used tool. Given the nature of our design
project, which focuses on mechanical engineering, we noticed that DMU tools were more
often used in our study than in Brown‟s.
Secondly, in the student project presented in this paper, a large part of collaboration
relies on chatting software, partially explaining the less frequent use of email.
We also noticed that not all students used the collaborative platform, possibly
suggesting that the platform is not easy to use. To the first question "What is the first
thing you need to start making the most out of Smarteam?", 71.5% of the students
answered that they needed a tutorial to start. A tutorial was provided, consisting in a
training exercise where the various stages in the design of an example product were
described one after the other. This tutorial allowed students to get to grips with the
software on his/her own. In case of setbacks, a video of the design sequence was
available on each computer connected to the platform.
PLM and design education: a collaborative experiment on a mechanical device
During this experiment, students only had access to the database when they were
physically present in project meetings. In other words, they were unable to freely access
project data outside of the hours allocated to this work. This also was perceived as a
strong obstacle to collaboration. Of the five participants which used PDM, all expressed
the wish to access the software from home, mainly to be able to exert some control over
the progress of the project, since working hours differed between the two centers.
One final obstacle to a more widespread use of Smarteam was the time needed to
work on data stored in a vault server based in the center of Châlons-en-Champagne.
Connecting times to the environment and file loading times were assessed as either long
or very long, by 28.6 and 42.9% of participants, respectively. Next, five of seven students
remarked, in the open question at the end of the interview, that just one face to face
meeting at the beginning of the project did not allow them to create human bonds and
work methods that were robust enough. There is a need for students to spend more time
in co-localization (i.e. in the same location) in the beginning of a project. To achieve this,
drawing inspiration from the physical environments used in large-scale industrial
projects, we suggest planning project work sessions over a period of two full days,
dedicated to setting up the methods and tools of collaboration, as well as to fostering
team spirit between the students.
Finally, we listed the main criteria identified regarding the resources available to
students for collaboration. In the next section, we present the results of the second
interview, which allow us to prioritize the implementation of the proposed improvements.
5.2 Towards defining an optimized platform for collaboration
Following the early results presented above, the results of the second interview suggest
two main pathways to improve the current PLM environment. Indeed, three main criteria
for dissatisfaction have been identified:
inability to remotely access project data, outside of the dedicated locations
(71.5% of subjects were dissatisfied),
ergonomics of the user interface (57.1% of subjects were dissatisfied),
overly lengthy transfer times: file transfer times (71.5% of dissatisfied users)
and connection times to reach the work environment (42.9% of dissatisfied
users).
In order to propose a collaborative environment that is well suited to our needs for
design education, we strove to address these various sources of user dissatisfaction,
which might hinder the use of this platform. This improvement task involved an
intercenter task force. We present below the results of its work.
First of all, due to confidentiality issues regarding the industrial projects, coupled
with issues surrounding network security, we were unable to implement network access
from outside the designated sites.
Second, to address the issues surrounding user interface design, we added a
compulsory four-hour training session for all students, added to the tutorials that were
already available online. This prior training allows students to become somewhat familiar
with the tools proposed in the engineering and communication toolboxes.
Finally, we modified the architecture of the national data, network, in order to
significantly reduce transfer times. To achieve this, we replicated some data, which up
until now was centralized on a single nationwide server, to all other servers. As a result,
file transfer times lowered by approximately 50%. Finally, the network architecture
Segonds, Maranzana, Véron, Aoussat
6 Conclusion
Due to worldwide competition between companies, practices in design training must
evolve to allow students to gain mindfulness of evolutions in design practices as well as
to manage projects in these new work environments. The Arts et Metiers ParisTech
School of Engineering has adapted its courses and design project methodology in order to
fulfill these needs. After having presented a state of the art of collaborative tools used in
product design, we presented an experiment focusing on the codesign of a complex
mechanical product. We created synergies between several training centers; and provided
a detailed analysis of collaborative design activity. Keeping in mind the need for data
security, we nevertheless were able to respond to many sources of stakeholder
dissatisfaction in this pilot project. As prospects for future research we note that this
optimized environment should be tested using a new experiment in a co-localization
condition, allowing students to apprehend the concept of work flow using real life
industrial examples.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thanks Ms Andia Montes C. and Mr Nelson J. for their helpful
suggestions received during this experiment.
References
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engineering students for the global marketplace-new demands and requirements. in
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2. Kakehi, M., T. Yamada, and I. Watanabe, PLM education in production design and
engineering by e-Learning. International Journal of Production Economics, 2009. 122(1):
p. 479-484.
3. Moon, Y.B., Teaching Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) with Enterprise Systems.
International Journal of Engineering Education, 2009. 25(5): p. 876-885.
4. Vila, C., et al., Collaborative product development experience in a senior Integrated
manufacturing course. International Journal of Engineering Education, 2009. 25(5): p.
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5. Vila, C., et al. PLM training through collaborative product design and manufacturing
projects. in 7th International Conference on Product Lifecycle Management. 2010.
Bremen, Germany.
PLM and design education: a collaborative experiment on a mechanical device