Supporting collaboration in the development of tools and dies in manufacturing networks

Parallel to the development of a main product such as a car body or a mobile phone, numerous tools and dies need to be specified, developed and produced. The process chain of the tools and dies industry represents the functional link between the main product development and the mass production of that product. The evolving market as well as the changing production and supplier structures of main product vendors is forcing the producers of tools and dies to change their traditional working methods and to focus on global production operations. As a result, there is an increasing need for collaborative systems in the tool and die manufacturing industry. Off-the-shelf collaborative systems do not meet the special needs of tools and die producers and such systems often have to be customized. This paper reports on the ongoing design and industrial implementation of a collaborative environment to support concurrent engineering in a manufacturing network.