The Design and Development of a Web-based Die and Mould Expert System (eDMES): Automation Process on Wirecut Machine Selection

Abstract

World-wide competition (WWC) has forced enterprises to adapt and adopt World Wide Web (WWW) capabilities into their business and manufacturing activities. The approaches and possibilities of such initiative are proposed in this study. Due to its complexity and relevance to WWW, a project related to die and mould industry was initiated. Initially, its database system was designed and developed; amalgamating manufacturing elements, customer requirements together with technology, economic and competitive factors into a collaborative environment. The Web-based die and mould experts system (eDMES) uses up-to-date computer and object-oriented programming (OOP) technologies available and applies concurrent engineering (CE) principles of made-to-order production in meeting customer requirements towards the goal of an integrated and collaborative environment. A case study on wirecut machine selection was carried out. Some of the manufacturing elements incorporated in this study in meeting customer requirements were wirecut machine, plate material, handling, transportation and machining charges. This research uses Java Server Page (JSP) as its OOP and WWW design tools while MySQL as its database management system.