2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics October 8-11, 2006, Taipei, Taiwan Modeling and Analyzing Concurrent Design Process for Manufacturing Enterprise Information Systems Xinqin Gao, Zongbin Li, Shancang Li, and Feng Wu Abstract-Information is a very important resource in manufacturing systems. The vagueness or lack of information leads to uncertainty and information flow conflicts in designing complex engineering products. The formal realization of concurrent design process for manufacturing enterprise information systems is the sticking point of design process management. This paper proposes a novel method of modeling and analyzing for concurrent design process based on the unified modeling language (UML) and the polychromatic sets (PS) theory. Together with the feature-based part design and process planning, UML model of concurrent design process is established using the basic model primitives and constructs of UML activity diagram. According to the mapping principles, UML mode of feature-based part design and process planning is mapped formally into PS contour matrix model. Based on PS contour matrix, the model reduction, path search and time consumption of concurrent design process are analyzed quantitatively and the opportunities are discovered to improve concurrent design process. I. INTRODUCTION IN all kinds of manufacturing resources, information is the governing enabling quantity, and its function is very important for manufacturing enterprise information systems. The characteristics of manufacturing activities determine that manufacturing must be information concentrated and information driven [1]. With the development of information technology, manufacturing enterprises confront the great challenges from abrupt changes and buyers' market. The difficulties in designing complex engineering products arise not only from their technical complexity, but also managerial complexity. From an information perspective, the design process management includes four major steps [2]: (1) model the information and dependency structure of the design process; (2) provide a design plan showing the order of execution for the design tasks; (3) reduce the risk and Manuscript received March 29, 2006. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 59885005 and 70572038, and the Key Lab of Information Management & Information Economics of Education Ministry, China, F0607-39. Xinqin Gao is a PhD candidate of State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China (e-mail: gaoxinqin(sohu.com). Zongbin Li is with State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing Systems Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China (phone: 086-029-82667003; fax: 086-029-82664233; e-mail: lzb991 0@mail.xjtu.edu.cn). Shangcang Li is with School of Electronic and Information, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049 China (e-mail: lishancang@gmai.com). Feng Wu is with the School of Management, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and also is with the Key Lab of Information Management & Information Economics of Education Ministry, China (e-mail: fengwugmail.xjtu.edu.cn). magnitude of iteration between design tasks; (4) explore opportunities for reducing the project cycle time. Concurrent design has become increasingly important for product development. In manufacturing enterprise information systems, the rationalized product development process is likely to result in better design decision. At present, there are many modeling methods of concurrent design process for manufacturing enterprise information systems, such as project evaluation and review technique (PERT), interpretative structure modeling (ISM) and design structure matrix (DSM). PERT can only be used to model the design process whose activities have obviously sequential relation. It has no ability to describe perfectly the feedback information and the iterative characteristic of concurrent design [3]. Based on the adjacent matrix, ISM and DSM use partitioning algorithm and tearing algorithm to identify coupling activity, rank activity level, and analyze and reconfigure the concurrent design process [4]. In fact, the vagueness or lack of information, under-determined design constraints, and multiple aspects of synthesis lead to uncertainty and information flow conflicts in design process. It is difficult for a complex engineering design process to predict design activity sequence and relativity in advance. This paper proposes a modeling and analysis method of concurrent design process for manufacturing enterprise information systems based on UML and polychromatic sets. The objective is to model, analyze and improve the interactions manifested by the information exchanges in concurrent design process. This method is an object-oriented method and is easy to understand and use for non-specialists. Moreover, it can establish a formal model of concurrent design process for manufacturing enterprise information systems. Using boolean operation and existing algorithm, the concurrent design process can be analyzed quantitatively and the key factors can be discovered to improve UML model. II. MODELING CONCURRENT DESIGN PROCESS BASED ON UML The unified modeling language (UML) is a visual and graphical modeling language. It is universally acknowledged as a de facto standard to analyze and design the object-oriented system [5]. Activity diagram is one of UML views and it offers a lot of model notations in order to describe execution orders and link forms of concurrent design activities. A. Link Forms of Concurrent Design Activities A concurrent design process consists of many design activities that are interrelated and interact on each other. Fig. 1 1-4244-0100-3/06/$20.00 C2006 IEEE 4999