Author(s)

N. Matsuki

Abstract

We have started a national research and development project of a manufacturing technology information infrastructure called MZ-Platform. MZ-Platform is a component-based software development framework, designed to support manufacturing enterprises to enhance digitalized technologies in a selfinnovative way. The major characteristic is that it can switch the running program by changing their components dynamically. It can load JavaBeans components searched by a component mining method, make connections with other active components and execute them. We show some application examples related to design and a manufacturing, such as a CAD (Computer Aided Design) data check tool and manufacturing process-scheduling system. Keywords: component-based software development, component mining, CAx. 1 Introduction We have developed a new component-based software development framework called MZ-Platform. This research is financed by METI (Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry) started in 2001 planned for five years research project [1]. The aim of this project is to develop a new tool for manufacturing industry, particularly for small and medium enterprises, that enables engineers themselves to develop wide variety of applications, such as manufacturing processscheduling system, CAx (represents CAD, CAM, CAE, CAT as a whole) tools, POP (point of production) programs to strengthen their competitiveness. Information technology (IT) tools become inevitable for manufacturing enterprises for the purpose to enhance their productivity, however, the cost to

Keywords

component-based software development, component mining, CAx.