Product lifecycle management for automotive development focusing on supplier integration
Introduction
The automotive industry is now under increasing pressure to maintain their places in the market. To improve their ability to innovate, get products to market faster, and reduce errors, the automotive manufacturers have been continuing to improve their development and management abilities through advances in computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided process planning (CAPP), computer-assisted manufacturing (CAM), computer-aided engineering (CAE), concurrent engineering (CE), product data management (PDM), business process reengineering (BPR), etc. [1]. It is worthy of pointing out that the past years have seen growing investments in the area of product lifecycle management (PLM) by the automotive industries [2], [3], [4], [5]. For example, companies from Boeing to GM to Proctor & Gamble are using PLM technology, making it a $16 billion industry in 2004. GM credits PLM initiatives with decreasing time to market from 48 to 18 months [6]. Automotive industry leaders such as Autoliv, Eaton, Honda, and Johnson Controls are driving success by using the MatrixONE solutions [7]. Regarding the importance of PLM to the automotive industry, Reale and Burkett make a conclusion which is “The Smarter the Car, the More Automakers Need PLM” [8].
PLM can be considered as a business strategy intended to link all information, people, and processes associated with a product from birth through end-of-life disposal [9]. Similar to other types of products, it is generally recognized that PLM for automotive development needs to span common product lifecycle phases from customer requirements definition, product design/simulation/analysis, production planning, manufacturing quality management, service and guaranty management, as well as recycling [10]. It is necessary to note that different PLM implementation patterns have been derived according to corresponding industry context and product characteristics [10]. The automotive industry tends to have structured process emphasizing configuration traceability and accountability persistence, and the automotive product development lifecycle is considered to follow the pattern of the stage-gate model [2], [11]. Meanwhile, automotive suppliers are seeking new ways to strictly contain costs without sacrificing innovative, feature-rich products, and platforms. With the demands for faster innovation, higher quality, and increased regulation, it becomes apparent that the winning automotive suppliers will be those that leverage product innovations to rapidly develop new platforms and win new programmes. Therefore, for the automotive OEM industries, there is an important new trend of automotive development which is increasing supplier involvement or integration into the product development process chain.
To respond to the trend of supplier integration for automotive development, the evolution of PLM framework and tools is very important and critical. Focusing on the supplier integration and collaboration, the direction of PLM for automotive development is investigated in this paper. The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explains the rational of supplier integration for automotive development. As PLM is the front of new challenges to enable successful supplier integration for automotive development, it needs to be responsible of controlling the collaboration between the automotive OEM and suppliers as well as managing the partnership between them. Therefore, Section 3 presents two types of supplier integration (quasi-supplier integration and full supplier integration) according to the collaboration depth; Section 4 discusses the partnership interface between the automotive OEM and suppliers. In Section 5, a PLM framework to enable supplier integration for automotive development is given. In Section 6, a case study is included. The last section concludes the paper.
Section snippets
Supplier integration for automotive development
Due to its complex development cycle, the automotive industry is seen to adopt the supplier integration into the development process or outsource a higher percentage of the product development to suppliers, such as Magna's involvement in Citreon, BMW, and DCX, Valeo and ArvinMeteritor in BMW [2]. Actually, it has been found from contemporary research in the fields of concurrent engineering and supply chain management that significant benefits can be achieved if suppliers are integrated/involved
Collaboration between automotive OEM and suppliers
As illustrated in Section 2, to realize supplier integration/involvement, it is important for PLM to provide a collaboration tool to enable appropriate collaboration between the automotive OEM and its suppliers. Using the collaboration tool, the supplier can conduct product design for OEM as an appropriate role (see Fig. 1).
Regarding the depth of collaboration, the supplier integration/involvement is in different ways. In this research, the integration of supplier into OEM process chain can be
Partnership interface between automotive OEM and suppliers
Generally, the partnership interface between an automotive OEM and associated suppliers is mainly modelled based on the product's Bill of Materials (BOM). The BOM-oriented partnership interface can be characterized by a 1-to-n-relationship (see Fig. 4). This means in detail that, the automotive OEM is responsible for selecting all suppliers and directly allocating BOM-oriented development and production orders to the selected suppliers. Investigations, however, reveal some limitations of the
PLM framework and tools enabling supplier integration for automotive development
Compared with the traditional engineering information management and product data management which support static vaulting of design files and workflow for approval, release, and change management, PLM addresses a more holistic perspective that ties information management and system integration with business strategy, thereby not only facilitating the efficient use, dissemination, creation and change of product related information, but also exploring system effects across the full product
Case study
Aiming at taking advantage of PLM, Nanjing-Fiat, an automotive joint venture company in China, has begun to implement its PLM system. For Nanjing-Fiat, most of the automotive product design activities are conducted in Italy, while the manufacture, assembly and vendition are performed in China. Most of suppliers of Nanjing-Fiat are also located in China for cost effectiveness. Focusing on the supplier integration and collaboration, following main issues are considered by Nanjing-Fiat for an
Conclusions
It is widely acknowledged that the automotive industry is more than ever obliged to improve its development strategy according to the increasing pressure of product innovation and complexity, the emergence of new technology, the changing market demands and increasing level of customer awareness. The provision of appropriate product lifecycle management in a complete and holistic manner has become crucial for the automotive development. As the automotive OEM has begun to adopt the supplier
Acknowledgement
This research is partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Research Grant under project no. 50505017.
Prof. Dunbing Tang earned his PhD from Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NUST) in March 2000. Then he spent 2 years on his post-doctoral research at Tsinghua University of Beijing and City University of Hong Kong. Funded by the renowned Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he conducted his research in Aachen University (RWTH Aachen, Germany) as an Alexander von Humboldt research scientist from July 2002 to February 2004. Thereafter he moved to Cranfield University (UK) as a research
References (18)
Collaborative product innovation: integrating elements of CPI via PLM framework
Computer-Aided Design
(2005)- et al.
WeBid: a web-based framework to support early supplier involvement in new product development
Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing
(2000) - et al.
A new generation of cooperative development paradigm in the tool and die making branch: strategy and technology
Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
(2004) - et al.
State of the art of the concurrent engineering technique in the automotive industry
Journal of Engineering Design
(2006) - PTC Product Development System: Product Lifecycle Management for Manufacturing Companies, 2003,...
- D. Winter, Ford's C3P Moves Ahead, Ward's Auto World, 1999,...
- et al.
Concurrent Engineering Effectiveness: Integrating Product Development Across Organizations
(1997) - HP OpenView PLM Management Solution for the Automotive Industry,...
- Driving Business Success Across the Automotive Industry,...
Cited by (0)
Prof. Dunbing Tang earned his PhD from Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NUST) in March 2000. Then he spent 2 years on his post-doctoral research at Tsinghua University of Beijing and City University of Hong Kong. Funded by the renowned Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he conducted his research in Aachen University (RWTH Aachen, Germany) as an Alexander von Humboldt research scientist from July 2002 to February 2004. Thereafter he moved to Cranfield University (UK) as a research fellow. Offered with a full-time professorship, Prof. Tang joined Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in December 2005. Up to now, Prof. Tang has conducted several research grants as a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI, and he has published over 70 academic papers. His research interests include engineering design, knowledge-based systems, enterprise integration, manufacturing system modeling and simulation, etc. His research outcome can be found in international high-quality academic journals such as International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, IMechE Part B-Journal of Engineering Manufacture, Computers & Industrial Engineering, International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, Computers in Industry, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Robotics & Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Concurrent Engineering – Research & Applications.
Dr. Xiaoming Qian is a lecturer at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics. He received his PhD degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 2004. His research projects aim at developing methods and tools to assist the activities of project managers and architects who design complex products. He has published more than 10 papers for conferences and journals.