Distributed engineering environment for inter-enterprise coliaboration

This paper focuses on collaboration of engineering information among globally distributed companies and describes DEE (Distributed Engineering Environment) of design and production on inter-enterprise network. For DEE, the integration framework and methodology to execute engineering are described in the paper. As for the forms of information description, XML, PSLX (Planning and Scheduling Language for XML) and Web browsing technologies are used. In DEE, XML technology prescribes the communication data form that contains hierarchical functional data structure on a common specific Web browsing space. And PSLX technology prescribes the dynamic processes and their controls of the connection among the distributed business activities of the creation of product data and documents. A prototype of DEE for engineering collaboration is also introduced to evaluate the feasibility. This prototype has been developed as a part of IMS/GLOBEMEN of international project.