Information integration management system for spiral bevel gear networked manufacturing process

Abstract: In order to more effectively support the information interaction and integration operation in spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process, and implement the integrated management and control of manufacturing information data, we combined the characteristics of spiral bevel gears manufacturing process and information integration with management technologies, and proposed an architecture of information integration management system for spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process in this paper based on the hierarchical thoughts. The architecture consisted of the access layer, management layer, information layer, activity layer, and resource layer which were integrated to form a whole information management system to realize the effective management and integration of entire manufacturing process form the initial spiral bevel gear orders to the final products delivery. Based on this and from the system overall operation perspective, the integration operation mode for spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing was established. Subsequently, according to the integration and sharing requirement of various information resources, the information description and integration framework of spiral bevel gear networked manufacturing process was set up based on the XML (extensible markup language) and Web service technologies, and the XML description, and Web service encapsulation mechanism of various information resources in spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process were researched. Through making the XML Schema as the data exchange specification, the standard structures of manufacturing process information data were specifically defined, which mainly included the content, format, and attributes. According to the XML Schema standard specification definition, the XML document mapping conversion and Web service encapsulation of manufacturing process information data were finally achieved. Afterwards, by means of the Web service application integration mechanism, the information description and integration of whole spiral bevel gear networked manufacturing process was realized. Based on the service oriented architecture, the loosely-coupled and openness function model of information integration management system was built, which was divided into the application layer, interface layer, business layer, service layer, and system layer. Meanwhile, the information management and Web service called mechanism of entire function model, as well as the role of each layer and the logical relationship between the layers were elaborated. In Windows 2003 Enterprise Server, Microsoft Visual Basic.NET, and SQL Server 2005 development environment, and based on Browser/Server architecture pattern, the prototype system as well as the all corresponding function service and management interfaces of information integration management system were planned and developed. The information integration and unified management of entire spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process were realized, which formed the gear order receipt, project planning, design and calculation of gears, process programming, task scheduling, procedure machining to the product delivery. Finally, through the enterprise application experiment of spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing, the validity of information integration management system in improving the production and management efficiency, shortening the gear production cycle, reducing the production costs were verified. Actual application results showed that the proposed architecture and implementation method of information integration management system were feasible and practical. It can effectively improve the operation and management efficiency of whole spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process. Taking the networked manufacturing process of spiral bevel gear orders in this paper as an example, in the whole enterprise application test process, we compared with the traditional distributed manufacturing and information management mode. The productivity of application enterprise was increased about 8%, the management efficiency was improved around 25%, and the production costs were reduced more than 3%. This research presents an effective method for realizing the informatization and integration of spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing process. It may also provide a reference for the further research and application implementation of spiral bevel gears networked manufacturing mode.