A web-based manufacturing service system for rapid product development Hongbo Lan a , Yucheng Ding a,* , Jun Hong a , Hailiang Huang b , Bingheng Lu a a State Key Lab for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, PR China b Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, PR China Received 12 March 2003; accepted 23 July 2003 Abstract This paper proposes a novel integrated system of rapid product development based on rapid prototyping, and develops a networked manufacturing service system which offers better support for the rapid product development in small and medium sized enterprises by taking full advantage of the quickly evolving computer network and information technologies. The architecture of the networked manufacturing service system is presented. Furthermore, some of the key issues, including modelling and planning a manufacturing chain, selecting feasible collaborative manufacturers, queuing a manufacturing task, using the synchronously collaborative work environment, and constructing a suitable running platform, are described in detail. Java-enabled solution, together with web techniques, is employed for building such a networked service system. Finally, an actual example is provided illustrating the application of this service system. # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Rapid product development; Rapid prototyping; Service system; Web-based application 1. Introduction This is the era of information technology. Informa- tion technology has influenced every realm of society, and dramatically impacted on the traditional industry. Current industries are facing the new challenges: quick response to business opportunity has been con- sidered as one of the most important factors to ensure company competitiveness; manufacturing industry is evolving toward digitalization, network and globali- zation. In order to respond to the change effectively, manufacturing strategy has to be modified from time to time in accordance with the market situation and customer demand. Any change of strategy should enable manufacturers to be better equipped them- selves, with capabilities to cope with demands such as a faster response to market changes, a shortened lead time of production, improved quality and speed, the ability to deliver quality products to global cus- tomers, and improved communications and transpor- tation system [1]. It is an established fact that the use of computers in design and manufacturing constitutes the most significant opportunity for substantial pro- ductivity gain in industry. It has now been widely accepted that the future of manufacturing organiza- tions will be information-oriented, knowledge driven and much of their daily operations will be automated around the global information network that connects everyone together [2]. In order to meet the demand of rapid product development, various new technologies such as reverse engineering (RE), rapid prototyping Computers in Industry 54 (2004) 51–67 * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86-29-266-8936; fax: þ86-29-266-0114. 0166-3615/$ – see front matter # 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.compind.2003.07.006 转载 http://www.paper.edu.cn