An object model for product and workflow data management

In industry design engineers have traditionally employed Product Data Management Systems to coordinate and control access to documented versions of product designs. However, these systems provide control only at the collaborative design level and are seldom used beyond design. Workflow management systems, on the other hand, are employed in industry to coordinate and support the more complex and repeatable work processes of the production environment. The integration of Product Data Management with Workflow Management can provide support for product development from initial CAD/CAM collaborative design through to the support and optimisation of production workflow activities. This paper investigates this integration and proposes a data model for the support of product data throughout the full development and production lifecycle and demonstrates its usefulness in the construction of large scale high energy physics detectors at the European Particle Physics laboratory at CERN.