A consistent manufacturing data model to support virtual enterprises

An integrated, exchangeable, sharable and distributed information environment is one of the crucial factors to ensure the competitive advantage of a virtual enterprise. A manufacturing model that describes an enterprise’s manufacturing capability information is an important part of such a distributed information infrastructure. This paper focuses on the definition of an object oriented manufacturing data model that can provide a consistent data structure for the construction of a manufacturing model for a virtual enterprise. The methodology that is employed to carry out the analysis and design of an object oriented manufacturing data model complies with the open distributed processing reference model. Unified modelling language (UML) class diagrams have been employed to represent the object oriented manufacturing data model with links to relevant ISO standards, which can be instantiated to generate a virtual, global manufacturing model. An experimental software system has been developed using ObjectStore OODBMS and Visual C++. An example manufacturing model for a simple virtual enterprise has been populated and can potentially be used to support product design and manufacturing decisions across a virtual enterprise.