Development of a real-time collaborative process planning management system for the mould industry

Mould manufacturing is a complicated process which involves the collaboration of various parties such as different internal functions, subcontractors and customers. Since the mould industry is operated in a Made-to-Order (MTO) manner, planning is important throughout the manufacturing process. In order to plan and manage the whole process that fits customers' requirements with a short lead time, mould manufacturers need to gather different production information from all the parties concerned. Also, other internal and external parties need to obtain information from each other. However, a long time is needed to obtain such information and in some cases it is not available. This paper proposes a real-time collaborative process planning management system (RCPMS) to facilitate the information sharing among parties. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is used to capture real-time production data and project status from internal and remote sites. Information captured by RFID and other data such as product specifications and production schedules are shared among different parties. Planners of mould manufacturing could make use of this system for instant decision making. Using it, mould manufacturers are able to plan, manage and monitor the production of moulds including outsourced process, more efficiently.