Workstation vendors are backing interactive databases as the best way to link design engineering and manufacturing, according to a recent report in Electronics News. A shared database may facilitate enterprise-wide systems and pull together the plethora of diverse hardware and software to be found in large manufacturing concerns, and what the vendors are now proposing is a common database at the centre of a plant’s operations, enabling a combination of tasks to be performed concurrently. These would include drafting and design, manufacturing engineering and numerical control, the drafting of models, and administrative tasks such as cost accounting, quality control and parts data. Jack Shields, president of Prime Computer, believes that the distinction between design and manufacturing engineering is becoming less relevant, and with product development cycles increasingly compressed, there is now a requirement for simultaneous engineering. Shields describes this as a backbone in the manufacturing process, and his views are echoed by James Meadlock, chairman and chief executive of Intergraph Corp. He believes that as hardware becomes cheaper, the link between engineering, design and manufacturing is technical information management, and that is based on a relational database. However, building such an integrated environment is likely to be difficult. Different kit, software and standards have created islands of incompatible technology, and few companies are prepared to discard their existing systems. Consequently, it is up to the vendors to create a fully integrated environment, and DEC has acknowledged this necessity by announcing its intention to convert most applications software for other vendors’ hardware. Nonetheless, one major obstacle to an industry-wide response is the cost of developing database links, and perhaps more significant, who should pay for such work. Manufacturers are reluctant to do so, and despite widespread agreement on the need for a common database structure, there is still an overriding lack of compatibility at anything other than the most basic levels.
