The implementation of collaborative design and manufacture platform based on web services

Nowadays manufacturers face the great challenges of a worldwide market, collaborative environments and the method of management of the whole product life cycle. Accordingly, a web based platform is proposed for collaborative designing and agile manufacturing. Without face to face discussion and specific CAD/CAM system, manufacturers and designers work for a component with the platform. For the purposes, a platform is created by web services technology. The SOAP messages are used to upload design files and exchange all kinds of information. However, it is difficult and time-consuming to choose better design in the part library. The AHP method is used to assess all suitable design files in the platform server. In the end, a simple example explains this process and the results draw a clear conclusion.