Internet-based Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

Concurrent Engineering http://cer.sagepub.com

Internet-Based Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System Ahmed Al-Ashaab, Karina Rodriguez, Arturo Molina, Mauro Cardenas, Joaquin Aca, Mohammed Saeed and Hassan Abdalla Concurrent Engineering 2003; 11; 289 DOI: 10.1177/1063293X03038367 The online version of this article can be found at: http://cer.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/289

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CONCURRENT ENGINEERING: Research and Applications Internet-based Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System Ahmed Al-Ashaab,1,* Karina Rodrı´ guez,1 Arturo Molina,2 Mauro Ca´rdenas,2 Joaquı´ n Aca,2 Mohammed Saeed3 and Hassan Abdalla4 1

School of Engineering and Built Environment, Wolverhampton University, Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1, 1SB, England 2 Concurrent Engineering Research Group, CSIM/DIA, ITESM Campus Monterrey, E. Garza Sada Sur 250, C.P. 64849, Monterrey, N.L. Mexico 3 Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Chester College of Higher Education, Parkgate Road,CH1 4BJ, Chester, UK 4 Department of Design Management and Communications, DeMontfort University, Fletcher Building, The Gateway, Leicester, UK

Abstract: Nowadays, the globalization of the manufacturing enterprises requires collaboration across frontiers. In order to attain effective collaboration, the information about the product life cycle must be captured and administrated in a way that supports the decision taken during the product development. In this context, the manufacturing process information needs to be shared between manufacturers. This paper introduces the SPEED (Supporting Plastic enginEEring Development) system designed to facilitate the sharing of injection-moulding information between interested parties via the Internet. Both the architecture and the functionality of the SPEED system are presented and described in this paper through a case study. The evolving issues are addressed. Finally, closing remarks and conclusions of the system are presented. Key Words: design for mouldability, manufacturing model, injection-moulding process information, collaborative product development, design for manufacturability over internet.

1. Introduction Global manufacturing is an on-going tendency supported by advanced information technologies and global marketing. Nowadays, it is common to see that product engineering, tooling, manufacturing, and final assembly of a product are done in companies situated in different countries in the world. The different teams involved in the product development have different expertise and knowledge that is not shared among them. The lack of interrelated knowledge about all the product life cycle activities is one of the most common problems facing industry in the process of product development. The collaboration between the distributed teams is difficult due to the distance and the difference of perspectives and knowledge used in their activities. This collaboration requires good coordination and administration of the product life cycle information and knowledge in order to support the taking of right

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]

engineering decisions. The information technologies and the Internet can support this need by providing the mechanism of capturing and providing knowledge and information in real time, secure and in a less expensive way. These technologies can also provide a solution for the collaborative work between different teams situated physically in different places of the world. The challenge is to allow accessibility to the knowledge of the product life cycle to all those involved in the development of a product. The research work to facilitate the collaboration among the geographically distributed companies is called Collaborative Product Development (CPD) systems [9]. The research presented in this paper is considered part of this CPD research effort. This paper presents the SPEED (Supporting Plastic enginEErng Development) system designed to facilitate the sharing of injection-moulding information and knowledge between interested parties via the Internet. Section 2 presents the activity modeling of the injection-moulded product as well as the need for capturing manufacturing process information. Section 3 presents the injection-modeling process information. Sections 4 and 5 describe both the archi-

Volume 11 Number 4 December 2003 1063-293X/03/04 0289–11 $10.00/0 DOI: 10.1177/1063293X03038367 Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 ß reserved. 2003 Sage © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights Not forPublications commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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tecture and the functionality of the SPEED system through a case study. The evolving issues are addressed. Finally, discussion of the results and conclusions of the system are presented in Sections 6 and 7.

2. Injection-moulded Product Development Representation Prior to developing an effective collaboration between distributed teams, it was necessary to determine which activities of the product life cycle were going to be supported and the information needed to be captured. Therefore, an activity modeling using IDEF0 techniques [5] was performed with several industrial sponsor companies. Figure 1 shows the key activities of the plastic product development. These are product specification definition, product engineering, mould design and fabrication, and production. The customers’ requirements are the input for defining the product specifications activity which itself will produce the specification data that controls the product engineering activity. The product engineering activity involves designing analysis, optimizing, testing, and validation activities to engineer a product that meets the customers’ needs. There are many commercial CAD/CAE tools that could be used to support these activities but they lack the knowledge required to support taking the right engineering decisions. The designers and engineers themselves take decisions depending on

their personal experiences. The lack of captured knowledge related to the injection-moulding process and resources capabilities is a common problem in the plastic industry, as some decisions taken in this stage impact other downstream activities, mainly mould fabrication and the production of the plastic part. Each of these activities provides information that is used by other activities to support intelligent decision making. Time and effort could be saved if the required information is provided in the correct time and place. This information represents the experiences gained by the engineers in different departments as well as the capabilities of the manufacturing resources used in the production area. We call this ‘‘Manufacturing Process Information’’ and is not yet captured and used by any system [9]. The following sections present the modeling of the injection-moulding process information and its development in the SPEED system to support the collaborative product development.

3. Injection-moulding Process Information Representation The manufacturing process information needs to be captured and shared with all those involved in the different activities of the product life cycle. Before capturing this information in the software system, a formal method to represent it is needed. In this work the

Figure 1. Key activities in plastic product development. Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

EXPRESS-G [7] has been used for the information modeling [1]. There are three key activities involved in the development of injected moulded parts: product engineering, the mould engineering and the production. As such, knowledge of plastic part mouldability (manufacturability), mould design and fabrication and injection-moulding machine capabilities is required to support the engineering applications. This knowledge is represented in a Manufacturing Model [1], which is an information model to capture and represent the manufacturing process information (process and resources capabilities). This is used as a common source of information to ensure manufacturing data integrity between the interacting design and manufacturing activities. Hence, the Manufacturing Model of this work was divided into three hierarchical trees, they are: Mouldability Features, Injection-mould Elements, and Injection-moulding Machine Elements as illustrated in Figure 2. The injection moulding process information was obtained from literature [2,3,6,8] and data collected from the plastic industry, especially the cosponsors of the SPEED project. The manufacturing data integrity was achieved by:

. Capturing the interaction between objects in different hierarchical trees.

The following sections present in some detail the modeling of the injection-moulded features. Also a case study is used to explain their implementation in the SPEED system. 3.1 Representing the Mouldability Features Knowledge To explore the representation of the mouldability knowledge related to the injection-moulding process, a features-based approach has been adopted and called Mouldability Features. Such features are wall, reinforcements (rib, boss, and web), hole, corner shape, parting line, weld line, gate position, and ejection position. Each feature was represented as an object that is defined by several attributes. Mouldability constraints of each attribute and their interactions with other features were captured to ensure the manufacturability of the plastic part. The wall and rib features are presented in some detail in the following subsections in order to demonstrate the knowledge structure.

. Capturing and representing the details of data definition including the constraints imposed on the data.

3.1.1 REPRESENTING THE MOULDABILITY OF A WALL FEATURE One of the characteristics of the injection-moulding process is that it is only possible to produce thin-walled products. The length and the thickness of the walls

. Capturing the interaction between objects in the same hierarchical tree.

Mouldability Feature

Pris matic Wall

Co r e

Rib

Parting Line

Boss Rotational Wall

Corner Shape

Web

Transition Wall Wall with angle

Injection Mould Elements

Reinforcement

We ld Li n e

Hole Ga te Po s ition Blind Ho le

is produced by

Wall

is moulded by

Plastic Product

has

Ej ection Po s ition

Curved Wall

Ej ection Sy s tem

Vent nt in g Sy s tem Air Ejector

Blade Ejector

Cavity

Co olin g Sy s tem

Fe e d Sy s tem Ru n n er Sy s tem G ating ng Sy s tem

Stripper Bar Ejector Stripper Ring Ejector

Gate

Stripper Plate Ejector

Injection Moulding Machine

Clamping Unit

Valve Ejector Pin Conventional Pin

Injection Unit

Sp r u e

Diaphram Gate Film Gate Pin Gate

Tab Gate Overlap Gate Fan Gate

Two-Step Pin

Round Edge Gate

Winkle Gate

Three-Step Pin

Rectangular Edge Gate Subsurface Gate

Sprue Gate

Sleeve Pin

Figure 2. Injection-moulding ‘‘Manufacturing Model’’ representation. Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

Ring Gate

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need to have the recommended values by the material provider as a reference point. The wall can be considered as the main feature of a plastic product, where other features (e.g. ribs, bosses, holes, etc.) are going to be placed on. Therefore, the mouldability of these features depends on the wall in which these are put on. Figure 3 illustrates the wall attributes that must be considered to ensure the manufacturability of the plastic part. These are:

have thinner walls and therefore reduce the amount of material and later the cooling time. To prevent rib mouldability problems, mainly the sink mark and short shot, its design must consider the wall thickness on which it is placed. Figure 3 illustrates the rib attributes and their interactions with the wall feature, which must be considered to ensure the manufacturability of the plastic part. These are: . Direction and position effect other features definition and help to detect possible intersection among the ribs. Ribs should be placed where the maximum load is expected on the wall. . Height and width: key rib’s attributes that must be considered carefully to avoid sink marks that may appear due to the thick material section. On the other hand, too high a rib makes it harder to manufacture the mould and to fill it with material during the processing, especially if the width is also too small. The rules for the maximum permitted height and width are:

. Direction and position to define its position within the plastic part. This will effect the definition of other features as well as to detect intersection with other wall features. . Thickness: too thick a wall causes mouldability problems like sink marks, shrinkage, and bending; too thin a wall causes short shot problems. Typical thickness is 1–5 mm. . Length and width related to the thickness. The thicker the wall, the longer they could be. . Draft angle: it is important to facilitate ejecting the part from the mould. . Maximum load position helps to determine the suitable rib position for rigidity.

Rib_height ¼ (3
Wall_thickness) þ 0.85 Rib_width ¼ 2/3
Wall_thickness . Draft angle: it is important to facilitate ejecting the part from the mould. . Base radius: to prevent stress concentrations. . Distance between ribs: to allow easy flow of material.

3.1.2 REPRESENTING THE MOULDABILITY OF A RIB FEATURE Ribs are commonly used to give strength and rigidity to the plastic product. At the same time, ribs help to

Hole

NoGate

rein_wall

Wall Wal

gated_wall connect_wall1 connect_wall2

Corner Shape

Transition Wall

Reinforcement

Rib Ri base_radius draft_angle NoRein

depth

REAL

blind_hole_wall_angle

distance_hole distance_wall diameter

Blind Hole

Boss

Prismatic Wall

Web

INTEGER

thickness length width draft_angle

REAL

radius outside_corner_radius stress_const_radius desired_min_radius

Ejection Position

base_fillet

Parting Line

INTEGER

Gate Position

Rotational Wall length

position direction

Weld Line

caused_by_hole

Mouldability Features

REAL

max_load_position height width distanceRein

REAL

use_rib

BOOLEAN

attached_on_wall

Figure 3. Representation of the mouldability features. Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

3.1.3 REPRESENTING THE OTHER MOULDABILITY FEATURES A similar modeling technique was performed on the rest of the mouldability features, which are modeled in EXPRESS-G shown in Figure 3. The figure shows the Mouldability Feature abstract class, which puts the ONE OF constraint on its subentities of Wall, Reinforcement, Hole, Corner Shape, Weld Line, Parting Line, Ejection, and Gate Position. Each of these features has attributes and constraints captured to avoid mouldability problems.

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also works as a web server. Currently, the access to the web server is restricted for internal testing due to security reasons. The engineering applications access and use the Manufacturing Model information through the WWW. This system architecture is illustrated in Figure 4(a), while Figure 4(b) shows the SPEED system’s main page. There are three engineering decision support applications so far. They are: the design for mouldability of the plastic part, the selection of the production equipment and the supporting of the mould design.

4. The SPEED System Architecture SPEED (Supporting Plastic enginEEring Development) is a prototype system that supports the need of capturing and sharing the injection-moulding process and resources capabilities over the Internet. It aids the integrated product development by ensuring the provision of the right manufacturing process information at the right time and place. SPEED is a Web-based system that uses the Internet and object-oriented database technologies. These technologies provide an easy and effective way to distribute the manufacturing process information along the companies in the extended enterprise. The system was developed using Java and Object Store OODBMS in order to provide an efficient retrieval of the data and management of the manufacturing information. The Manufacturing Model was captured in an object-oriented database according to the representation explained in the previous section. This database resides on a Silicon Graphics server, which

5. Injection-moulded Product Development in SPEED: A Case Study To give a detailed description of the SPEED functionality, the plastic part shown in Figure 5 is used as a case study. Only the ‘‘design for mouldability’’ application is presented.

5.1 The SPEED Design for Mouldability Application The ‘‘design for mouldability’’ application is concerned with ensuring that product functional features can be moulded without problems. The application also provides feedback advice to the designer regarding the design issue under consideration. This application is supported by the mouldability features representation in the Manufacturing Model. Moreover, due to the interaction between the data, the impacts of the

Figure 4. The SPEED system. Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

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A. AL-ASHAAB ET AL. 400 mm

General description: Thin wall product Maximum length: 600 mm Maximum width: 400 mm Maximum depth: 100 mm Weight: 0.5 kg Plastic: Polyethylene (HD) Texture: Smooth

300 mm 600 mm

70 mm 50 mm 50

200 mm

-A2*t

Side wall

t = base wall thickness

2*t 2*t

D = boss diameter

Rib

d = hole diameter

Boss

Web

2*t 2*t d

Holes

Base wall

D d

-B-

-C-

Figure 5. SPEED Case study. -A- Case study general description in 2D; -B- Design for function; -C- Design for mouldability.

Figure 6. Defining the base wall feature in SPEED. A – Moudability features menu; B – Feedback advice to the user, C – 2D illustration drawing; D – Product information input values; E – OK Button.

product manufacturability on the injection mould and machine are considered and highlighted in the SPEED system. The ‘‘design for mouldability’’ application window is as shown in Figure 6. The user needs to input

the product general information, as illustrated in Figure 5-A. As previously explained, the SPEED system uses the design-by-feature approach. In the following subsections some of the features of the case study product will be outlined in detail.

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Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

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Figure 7. System suggestion when adding a rib.

5.1.1 DESIGN FOR MOULDABILITY OF A WALL FEATURE To start defining the product, the first feature that must be considered is the wall feature. The features are selected by pressing the buttons on the top of the application and are defined by filling in the fields on the right hand side of the screen. Figure 6 shows the ‘‘BaseWall’’ definition. The values required for the wall are direction, length, width, thickness, draft angle, initial position, and applied force position. Those are the attributes captured in the wall object as explained in Section 3.1.1. The SPEED system checks their values against the constraints captured in the Manufacturing Model and sends an advice to the user in the feedback section. In the case of the ‘‘BaseWall’’, the thickness has been defined as 13 mm for the sake of the case study. The SPEED sends a feedback advising to make a thinner wall (and consequently add a rib) with the value of ‘‘3.5 mm’’ which is the recommendation of the plastic material selected by the designer of the part under consideration. The direction of the wall is used to determine if the wall needs a draft angle, in this case, a draft angle is not needed, as the direction is perpendicular to the opening axis of the injection machine. The applied force position is used to suggest where the rib should be placed in order to give the required stiffness. The user interacts with the system to modify the values as it was advised. Finally, by pressing ‘‘OK’’ the ‘‘Base Wall’’ definition is rechecked. If the data falls within the mouldability constraint the

wall is created as part of the plastic product definition, which is represented in an object. 5.1.2 DESIGN FOR MOULDABILITY OF A RIB FEATURE In order to have the same wall rigidity, as in the original design, a rib feature will be needed. It will be created automatically by the SPEED system. SPEED makes all the calculations of the rib attributes that are defined in the manufacturing model (refer to Section 3.1.2) considering the constraint applied to each attribute. The rib values are shown as default values in Figure 7. The position of the rib, also by default, will be where the maximum load is expected on the wall feature. This should have been defined in the wall session, otherwise it would be considered in the center of the wall. The SPEED system user will have the freedom to change any value registered and checked by the system to evaluate whether they are within the mouldability constraint of the process. For the sake of argument and demonstration, the rib attributes have been changed to some values out of the limit of the injection-moulding process. SPEED will make the evaluation and send a feedback advice to the user with the recommended values as illustrated in Figure 7. On the other hand, if there are no problems, the system will simply inform and allow the user to continue defining the product. In the case of the rib, the system suggests to add another rib to reinforce the rigidity of the product. This is done by selecting the rib feature from the menu and changing or accepting the default values.

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5.1.3 DESIGN FOR MOULDABILITY OF OTHER FEATURES IN SPEED A similar procedure is followed with the rest of the features until the product is within the mouldability constraints as shown in Figure 5-C. The Design for Mouldability application is flexible regarding the features definition and their interactions. Its detailed description lays beyond the scope and the space limitation of this paper. As shown in Figure 8, every time a new feature is created, the system draws a simple representation of each feature in 2D. This basic representation helps to have an idea of the product being constructed.

and understand. The system architecture supports the simultaneous use of the system by many users, who could be distributed geographically, in real time. The SPEED system provides the users with a mechanism where products, mould, and machine information could be seen at any time during the development process. For example pressing the ‘‘Product Information’’ button (as shown in Figures 6–8) brings a window with the detailed definition of the product in that stage. This is one means of collaboration by sharing the information throughout the development process. In addition, further research is being conducted in order to include video and audio communication tools that make more effective the real time interaction among the geographically distributed team members. The SPEED has been tested and presented through demonstration several times with the Mexican and British plastic industries. Their feedback has been focused on two main issues, support 3D drawing and the cost application. The Java 3D has been tested and has already been integrated into the system. In addition, while the system supports the development of complex injection-moulded parts at certain extent; more work is required to represent the complex geometry of such part. Furthermore, a mechanism to integrate CAD to the system is an issue that needs to be addressed. The commercial advances in what is called Collaborative Product Commerce systems, i.e., OneSpace Collaboration [4], are promising for

6. Discussion of the SPEED Results In the world of integrated marketing, the global manufacturing collaboration is essential in order to sustain and improve the market share. However, the effectiveness of such collaboration depends on the availability and the management of information and knowledge required through product development. The SPEED system is a prototype that supports this collaboration. This is because it is an Internet knowledge-based information system where the process knowledge is represented in detail to support and ensure that right engineering decisions are taken. The use of the Internet makes the information available at any time and place and in a format easy to use

DESIGN FOR MOULDABILITY Home Prismatic Wall

Product Information Rib

Plastic Information Hole

Load a product

Channel

Help

Corner Shape

Parting Line

Weld Line

SPEED_Test

Gate Position BaseWall

Web

Feedback ***CONFIRM*** The Web2 is within the mouldability constraint Web2 HAS BEEN CREATED You can continue defining other features

The Web2 is within the mouldability constraint Web2 HAS BEEN CREATED You can continue defining other features

Name:

Web2

Length (mm):

5

Base radius (mm):

0.5

Thickness (mm):

2

Draft Angle:

Product Drawing

1

Height (mm)

Y

Y

Initial pos. (X,Y,Z):

OK Z

11 (0,80,0)

Clear All

X

Figure 8. Product graphic representation in SPEED. Downloaded from http://cer.sagepub.com at PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on April 14, 2008 © 2003 SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.

Ejection Pin ----------

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Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

addressing this issue. The cost application is well understood by the research team and it is a question of time to develop it and integrate to the system. An approach, such as the SPEED system, will help the plastic industry to capture their knowledge and experiences and then acts as an intellectual property system. This could be considered feasible among the partners of one industrial group, who are bounded by common financial interests. However, sharing the know-how knowledge among the subcontractors is an issue that needs to be addressed from the management point of view.

7. Conclusions SPEED is an information system based on the Internet, which supports the integrated injectionmoulding product development. This research project proves that the mouldability rules of the features of a product and its knowledge involved can be captured and shared through the Internet to support the global manufacturing collaboration. The use of the ‘‘design for mouldability’’ application can be customized in accordance with user requirements. The features presented in this work are common to all plastic products; this allows the definition of a great variety of products no matter the complexity of the geometry. The manufacturing process information was obtained from the existing literature about the injectionmoulding process [2,3,6,8]. Each plastic company uses its own variations of rules based on the experience of its designers and other engineers. Because of these, before making the technology transfer to an industry, a customised process is required to capture the new knowledge and adapt it to the specific company’s requirements. The structure of the information can be applied to different kinds of manufacturing processes, such as casting. This capability allows the application of this concept to another industry. SPEED stimulates collaboration between international companies, where for instance product engineering is taking place in the USA, Europe, or Japan while the manufacturing is carried out in Mexico. This supports the production of a better, cost effective product in less time. Hence, the SPEED system ensures the integration and collaboration among the geographically distributed companies.

Acknowledgment The Carplastic, VITRO Ensers Domestico, Ponds, The British Council office Mexico City, and the CSIM of the ITESM Campus Monterrey have sponsored this work in Mexico. Metadata and Excelon have

provided the database ObjectStore. The Engineering division of Wolverhampton University sponsors the PhD scholarship of Miss Karina Rodriguez. The authors wish to acknowledge the sponsors for their support. References 1. Al-Ashaab, A.H.S and Young, R.I.Y. (1997). Modelling Manufacturing Process Information using the Express Language. The Special Issue of Concurrent Engineering Research and Application Journal ‘‘CERA’’ on Enterprise Integration and Management. 2. Berins, M.L. (ed.) (1991). Plastic Engineering Handbook, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York. 3. Bralla, J.G. (1986). Handbook of Product Design for Manufacturing, McGraw-Hill Inc, New York. 4. Cocreate 2003, http://www2.cocreate.com/ 5. Coloquhun, G.J., Baines, R.W. and Crossley, R. (1993). A State of the Art Review of IDEF0, International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacture, 6(4): 252–264. 6. Dym, J.B. (1987). Injection Molds and Molding, A Practical Manual, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, ISBN 0-442-21785-4. 7. EXPRESS 1992. EXPRESS Language Reference Manual, ISO DIS 10303-11. 8. Pye, R.G.W. (1989). Injection Mould Design, Longman Scientific & Technical, EU. 9. Rodriguez, K. and Al-Ashaab, A. (2002). A review of Internet based collaborative product development systems. In: Proceedings of 9th ISPE International Conference on Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications, Cranfield, UK.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Ashaab Dr. Ahmed Al-Ashaab is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering and Built Environment in the University of Wolverhampton. Ahmed obtained his PhD from Loughborough University in 1994. Since then he has worked in the ITESM Campus Monterrey in Mexico where 50% of his time was spent working with Mexican Industry. He has been active in introducing and implementing NPI/D methodologies based on Concurrent Engineering within the Mexican manufacturing companies. He is the Founder and was the President of the Mexican Society of Concurrent Engineering. He is the leader of on going project of Internet-based Intelligent Information system to support the plastic product development. His research interests are CE, Knowledge-based Engineering, Extended and Virtual Enterprises and Collaborative

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Product Development. Dr. Al-Ashaab has written many international publications and participated in several of the conference committees and session chair. Dr. Al-Ashaab is the publicity chair of the ISPE/ CE2xxx Series Conferences.

Joaquı´ n Aca Joaquı´ n Aca, graduated from Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the ITESM Campus Monterrey in 2000. He is currently doing his Masters in Advance Manufacturing System in CSIM ITESM Campus Monterrey. He has been working in several Knowledge-based Engineering projects with the Mexican Industry. His research interests are CE and KBE.

Karina Rodriguez Karina Rodriguez is a PhD student in the School of Engineering and Built Environment in the Wolverhampton University. She got a Computer Science honours degree from the ITESM Campus Monterrey in Mexico in 1999. She worked as Research Assistant in the CSIM of ITESM campus Monterrey in the SPEED project. Her research interests are Knowledge-based Engineering, Information Modeling and Internet-based Collaborative Product Development. Dr. Arturo Molina Dr. Arturo Molina is Titular Professor in the CSIM-ITESM Campus Monterrey. Arturo obtained his PhD from Loughborough University in 1995. His research Interests are CE, Knowledge-based Engineering, Virtual Enterprises and Enterprise Modeling. He was coordinating several international projects in the area of virtual enterprise. Dr. Molina has written many international publications and participated in several conference committees and session chair. Mauro Cardenas Mauro Cardenas graduated from Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from the ITESM Campus Monterrey in 2001. He worked in the SPEED project for 2 years. He has joined the Mabe GE Plastic as product design engineer. His research interests are CE, CAD/CAM/CAE and Internet-based Collaborative Product Development.

Dr. Mohammed Saeed Dr. Mohammed Saeed is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science & Information Systems Department of the Chester College of Higher Education in the. He got his PhD in Computer Science from Loughborough University in 1992. His research interest are Information System, Object Oriented Methodologies and Internet-based Collaborative Product Development.

Professor Hassan Abdalla Professor Hassan Abdalla is currently the Head of Department of Design Management and Communication at De Montfort University in the UK and a leading authority in the field of rapid and sustainable product development, concurrent engineering, and design for assembly/dis-assembly. The founder of the rapid product development research group at De Montfort University Leicester which has a high reputation, both on a national and an international level. It has very strong links with a number of organisations and institutions world-wide. For a number of years, Professor Abdalla worked in

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Collaborative Design for an Injection-moulding System

industry before joining academia. He is the author/ co-author of more than 80 research papers published in international journals and refereed conferences. He has been invited as a keynote speaker for several conferences and currently serving on the

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technical reviewing committees of a number of journals. Professor Abdalla has led several national and international funded projects, from both the Commission of the European Union and EPSRC.

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