Citation:
C. I. V. Kerr; R. Roy; P. J. Sackett; Requirements management: an enabler for concurrent engineering in the automotive industry, International Journal of Production Research, Volume 44, Issue 9 May 2006 , pages 1703 - 1717
Abstract:
Defining and agreeing the product requirements is especially important when the
design and manufacture of a system is part of an Extended Enterprise. To realize
an all-inclusive concurrent engineering process, tools for the upstream design
activities are needed. In practice, it is often difficult for the companies to
have a shared understanding of what needs to be developed, and so specifications
contain ambiguities in describing the product requirements. This paper clarifies
the problem domain in the context of a complex product, designed and
manufactured in a pan-national Extended Enterprise and serving a highly
competitive market. The authors show how the challenge can be addressed through
the application of ontology. A model of a requirements-management tool is
proposed that will allow the various systems and associated levels of a product
to be described and then shared through the supply chain. A prototype system is
presented and illustrated through a case study from the automotive industry.