Abstract
In order to quickly response to customer’s request, an enterprise must manage its product data efficiently. The key role of a product data management (PDM) system is to manage all sorts of product related data so that production efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved. Further, the competition between distinct supply chains arises. Effective information exchange among different enterprises is essential for a company to gain higher competitive advantages. PDM Schema defines the common product data models utilized by most PDM systems. Based on the standard definition, an enterprise can share the product data in the PDM System with its partners easily in electronic environment via the Internet. Consequently, the data manipulation errors induced from human factors can be relatively reduced and the speed for product data exchange through distinct PDM System can also be improved. This paper first clarifies the data representation schema for product data management in different modules. Further, the mechanism for product data exchange between different PDM Systems is demonstrated. By applying the ARIS approach, the systematic flow for product data management is analyzed. Moreover, a web based prototype system for product data exchange is developed. Effectiveness of the data representation schema and systematic process analysis presented in the thesis is validated by the prototype system implementation. This research aims at exploring an appropriate methodology for business so that high efficiency of product data exchange among enterprises can be achieved.