Abstract

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the activity of managing products over their lifecycle. The goal is to achieve a total integration of all components to better understand products and their environments and to establish competitive advantages. This thesis proposes the use of semantic web technologies to support PLM. An overview of the semantic web briefly describes the basic building blocks. A review of literature reveals many useful applications from automated question answering to information security. The framework for semantic web-based PLM collaboration is examined and an ontology development process is presented in the context of PLM. Software systems were developed to perform semantic web automation and interactive 3D visualization. Applications of semantic web technologies for information retrieval, step by step process support, and design and manufacturing support are demonstrated. A novel 3D collaboration approach that protects 3D virtual assets via remote rendering and the service of a trusted shared mask broker was developed. The novelty of the proposed approach is that companies can collaborate on shared digital mockups without having to share their 3D models. Instead, only the required views for specific tasks are automatically exchanged, thereby eliminating the need for 3D navigation.