Ge n erati ng Genera l C on c e p ts Based on interesting existing solutions, identified in the research phase, general concepts were generated internally. The three most interesting was, Project-Thingiverse, Group of Groupware and Social-PoDM, which represent three levels of complexity. The three concepts will be described in short here. The “two sides of a product idea” by Hansen & Andreasen (2002) are used to describe the concept. The concepts can be seen on the following page. The section below will give a quick description of the evaluation of the concepts.
Re t h i n k i n g the concep t
Evaluati on of t h e t h ree c on c ep ts
From the beginning, the overall aim of this project was to develop a concept that “support community-based development of complex physical products”. The research supports the need of such a solution. “Project-Thingiverse” is an interesting idea and could present real value for simpler projects. But it does not support complex product development. The value proposition of this concept does not justify a change of course. The concept “Group of Groupware” has been tried before by OpenDesignEngine and OpenPario, none of these projects are successful, and the overall architecture is still minded software development. This leaves Social-PoDM. Social PoDM is the most radical and complex concept with many uncertainties, but it is seen as the only of the generated concepts, that meet all the requirements identified in the research phase. It is also seen as the only concept that would attract established companies. It was decided to continue on the path of Social-PoDM, but aspects of Project-Thingiverse should be drawn in.
D ef i n i ng th e overa ll c on c ep t framework
Based in Social PoDM, the general framework for the concept was defined in more detail. Two elements will be drawn out: The network framework and the database system. The Network: The concept is a web-based collaboration platform where users can sign up and get access to their own design repository and project management Figure 13- Network framework tools. The repositories can be used by teams sharing a repository and running many projects, by single individuals running small projects, or individuals without a repository who just signed up to contribute to, or follow other projects. The platform should supports the creation of networks between these users and the forming of communities. Lessons learned from Open Source communities shows that a few “large” influential projects will dominate these networks and smaller projects will contribute with minor improvements, (see figure 13). The platform will be specifically minded on supporting such networks. Both private and public projects can be run on the platform. Private projects can protect their designs and be “invisible” to other users and public projects can easily collaborate with other public projects. In this way it mimics Github.com. PAGE
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The Database Management System: The system is based on an relational database, such as mySQL. Data and metadata are separated for version control purposes, standard procedure in PDM (Dahlqvist et. al., 2001). This is fundamentally different from how version control of source code is handled in SCM systems and the reason why existing open source SCM solutions are not well equipped to handle product definition data of physical products. It was decided to focus on a centralised version control system as distributed version control, however useful, could result in unintentional forking. Hardware do not benefit from relatively easy merger as software does, why unintentional forking can be harmful for the progress in individual projects. Role management can define how users outside the centralised system can interact with the documentation. In open projects it should be possible to download product documentation and clone projects. Within projects it should also be possible to branch a project and develop alternative solutions simultaneously. Product structure management can supports this process through well defined interfaces.
The overall system is based in the client/ server model, see figure 14. Local applications lets users interact with the PDM system that controls metadata of the managed files. One local application allow integrated interaction with local CAD applications and control of local files. This application is more or less black boxed in this project, but the application will mimic the same applications used in traditional PDM solutions. Another local application is your browser, from where you only interact with the PDM system. Focus has been put on how you interact with the PDM system through your browser.
Figure 14 - Client/server model for PDM