Improving manufacturing efficiency at ford using product centred knowledge management

Western manufacturing is under pressure to produce high quality customized products particularly in large manufacturing such as the car industry at low costs. Here the development of such product customization requires the adoption of innovative agile manufacturing techniques. To date this innovation has focused on the improved process development between the different stages of manufacturing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM). However in terms of implementing the application, data management techniques have lagged behind often leaving these processes disjointed and lacking in automation. This paper proposes an improved model based on innovation in the manufacturing PLM. Building on existing work in the use of ontologies for knowledge management, the paper applies these techniques to PLM. The implementation has been applied to develop a case study around a Ford production line. The prototype presents an innovative approach to PLM and tested using a state of the art Web Service infrastructure implemented on a Ford Powertrain test rig.