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The evolution of enterprise services is changing the approach for enabling Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) business processes. Enabling systems are migrating to process- and service-oriented solutions. In particular, the paper demonstrates how the new technologies can be used to enable a critical process that links vehicle health maintenance to PLM. Our hypothesis is that Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) and PLM integration is achievable through composite application design. The key process for linking CBM to PLM must convert prognostic and diagnostic information into actionable information that can be directed into a project-level PLM environment that supports the end-to-end product improvement process. To test this hypothesis, we designed a composite application within the context of a Small Business Innovative Research project that is sponsored by the US government. This paper motivates the problem from the strategic level to the implementation level and describes the successful test of the hypothesis.

Modern CAD systems generate feature-based product shape models with parameterization and constraints. Until recently, standards for CAD data exchange among different CAD systems were restricted to the exchange of pure shape information. These standards ignored the construction history, parameters, constraints, features and other elements of 'design intent' present in the model to be transferred. This paper suggests an implementational foundation for CAD data exchange with the preservation of design intent, based on the use of newly published parts of the International Standard ISO 10303 (STEP). Case studies are presented which employ a hypothetical STEP application protocol (AP) using Parts 55, 108 and 111 of ISO 10303. A prototype translator based on this AP has been implemented and tested. The paper reports on the experience gained in 'intelligent' data exchange.

The evolution of Enterprise Services is changing the approach for enabling Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM). Enabling systems are migrating to process- and service-oriented solutions, requiring new approaches for architecting composite applications. This paper uses examples from our work to present the state-of-the art in architecting end-to-end solutions for delivering PLM and SCM capabilities from an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to the customer. The paper also demonstrates how emerging methodologies, methods, and tools are used to support the implementation of composite applications, as well as the limitations of working in a mixed legacy/modern environment during the lengthy transition period to the new service-oriented computing paradigm. The hypothesis of this paper is that design and supply chain integration is achievable through composite application design, development, and deployment. This paper discusses the design, development, and deployment of a composite application to address the product improvement process for military vehicles, and it lays the foundation for testing the hypothesis. Based on these initial analyses we conclude that the composite approach to PLM is not only feasible, but may provide the only practical solution (given current technologies) to a very complex supply chain information sharing problem.Copyright © 2008 by ASME and U.S. Government