Journal of Software Engineering and Applications, 2013, 6, 18-22
doi:10.4236/jsea.2013.63b005 Published Online March 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jsea)
Collaborative Design Theory and Related Key Technology
Study Based on Cloud Computing
Meiren Zhang, Ying Chen
School of mathematics and information engineering, Taizhou University, Taizhou, China.
Received 2013
ABSTRACT
Analyzes the main way of product distributio n for collabo rative design. According to the requirement of manufacturing
collaborative design, apply cloud computing in manufacturing collaborative design and come up the concept of product
collaborative clo ud design. Stud y the produ ct co llabor ativ e design theo ry based on cloud co mputing and the gener al key
technology of cloud computing, semantic web, intelligent matching selection algorithm, STEP and XML technology,
version management and conflict resolution arithmetic and so on which related to this theory. The study object of this
article is automotive produ ct. Construct a automotive collab orative design system with the k ey technology to verify the
feasibility and validity of the cloud b asing collaborativ e design theory and related technolog y. This collaborativ e design
system will overcome the weakness that resource and information can not b e shared b etween different department in the
same enterprise or different enterprises. Join up this system will help directly enterprise for co llaborative design and the
repetition construction of co llaborative design platform of each enterp rise will be avoid. It will reduce the investment of
enterprises for constructing and managing collaborative design platform and further reduce the cost of product R&D
with a better and more efficient design.
Keywords: Cloud Computing; Cloud Design; Co llaborative Design; Semantic Web; Intelligent Matching; Version
Management
1. Introduction
Along with the increasing competition in manufacturing
market, enterprises have to build up self competitive ad-
vantage through upgrading rapid reaction ability and en-
hance innovation capability. Collaborative design is an
important research field and application direction of
computer supported collaborative work, and it is a spe-
cific application of CSCW in CAD. It is a new design
methodology to develop new product with parallel col-
laborative design between different departments located
in different places in the internal enterprise. This will
help reducing the design cycle, cost and increase the de-
sign efficiency to adapt the increasing market competi-
tion in manufacturing industry. Cloud design will inte-
grate more design components into internet and more
design resource will be shared in internet through design
software. The works or elements of each designer, as
they wish, can be published, shared and become the de-
sign resource of other designers and stored on line. In
this way, thousands of designers will become a strong
cloud design network with great capacity stock. Cloud
design is one of the key technologies of cloud manufac-
ture. This article come up with a product collaborative
cloud design theory and applies cloud computing into
product collaborative design system.
2. Problems Existed
Now most of study to collaborative design focused on
concentration and distribution control. But concentrated
control can not make different located designers share
their design resources and the knowledge can not be re-
used. Distribution control introduce and apply intellectu-
alization and networking design model represented by
semantic net, intelligent Agent, application service pro-
vider, manufacturing network etc. it has effected some
fields like design knowledge and resource sharing, re-
source sterilization modeling and capsulation, configura-
tion and scheduling, collaboration and so on. However
because of the limitation of type, quantity, ability and
usage mode of the provided resource service, the infor-
mation share based on networking design is not enough,
resource unitization ratio is not high, and knowledge re-
use and innov ation ab ility in p rod u ct design is in ad equ ate.
In the meantime, every enterprise has to build up their
own collaborative design system, the cost of system con-
struction and management is so high that it restricts the

Collaborative Design Theory and Related Key Technology Study Based on Cloud Computing
19
application extending and development. For instance,
some large-scale manufacturing enterprises have already
built up the collaborative design system, but the system
of each enterprise is independent so it is difficult to pro-
ceed with the collaborative design between enterprises.
The research object of this article is automotive prod-
uct, come up with the cloud basing collaborative design
theory, apply cloud computing into collaborative design,
make it possible for sharing enterprises’ design resources
through collaborative design system, reuse the design
knowledge, enterprises just need to register in this system
then they can start collaborative design between different
departments or different enterprises without building up
their own collaborative design system to avoid repeated
construction and investment, this system is specially a
good choice for middle and small-scale enterprises who
don’t have the foundation to build up their own inde-
pendent collaborative design system.
3. Key Technologies Analyzed
Cloud design build up a frame for manufacturing product
collaborative design based on cloud computing and with
the cloud manufacturing idea. Manufacture enterprises,
especially middle or small- scale enterprises don’t need
to build up their own collaborative system anymore, just
register and access to the system according to their own
requirements, and then make use of the system design
resources for collaborative design. This will make shar-
ing design resources between enterprises come true and
reduce the cost for enterprises to build up collaborative
system.
To solve the problem during product manufacturing
distribution collaborative, information resources sharing
and knowledge representation, searching and reuse, in-
troduce semantic web service into product manufacturing
design process, ontology construct for product informa-
tion and design resources in manufacturing enterprises,
represent the semantic in service anabolic process
through combination of event-driven service model and
semantic service logic diagram.
Study the intelligent disassemble for product design
task, intelligent matching for design enterprises and de-
partments and other function; Choosing appropriate
matching model and task breaking down to make col-
laborative design system adapt different changes better in
the actual work and find the best design resource. In the
meantime reduce the product development cycle, product
cost, improve the product quality and increase develop-
ing efficiencies.
In the cloud computing environment, design a theory
of design documents transition agreement and exchang-
ing rule based on STEP and XML technology. Then the
different format design documents can transform and
exchange between CAD system and CAM system and
CAD internally and CAM internally in cloud manufac-
turing. Integrate and share the enterprises product infor-
mation in the system and enterprises can have fast re-
sponse to the market change, all of this will help china
meet the rapid development requirement of global
economy and stand in positive side of global competi-
tion.
As different owners of colla borative design will be in-
dependent in a limited level meanwhile they have to co-
operate with each other, the design conflict will not be
avoided. Therefore, detection and resolution of conflict
will be very important supporting technology in collabo-
rative design. This paper intends to solve the conflict in
the design by version management and version update
notification to the design documents.
4. System Architecture Study of Product
Cloud Design
Based on the study of web collaborative design model
represented by ASP service and manufacture grid, inte-
grated application of cloud computing technology and
build up new networked collaborative design system,
connect different located enterprises or different depart-
ments into this system, and these design enterprises could
complete each others’ advantage by this system, share
the resources and technology, and form a fast, good qual-
ity, efficiency, low cost design system with high speed.
Considering this, here we comes the collaborative design
model based on cloud computing for multi enterprises.
The framework is described here as followed in Figure
1. Firstly, enterprises register in the system, add enter-
prises’ information and design resources into system,
enterprises can publish design requirements, and cooper-
ated enterprises will download the distributed collabora-
tive task through cloud storage data base server after they
log in the system. When users finish their collaborative
design, they can update the design model data into the
data base server, the system will then inform other users
the version updating information immediately, with this
the collaborative design come true. Consumers could
also enter into the collaborative design system by web
and give their recommendation and product design opin-
ion.
The function of product cloud design system showed
below as in Figure 2.
The system identify the semantics according to regis-
tered enterprises’ information and design resource; after
the registered enterprises publish their design require-
ments, the system will intellig ently search and match the
best design organization according to different design
resources existing in the system and separate the design
task. After getting the design task from the system, de-
sign organization will cooperate with other design or

Collaborative Design Theory and Related Key Technology Study Based on Cloud Computing
20
Collaborative
Regist ra tion
A: desig n de partment 2 of
company
Log in
C: design department of
co
m
pa
n
y
Consumer
Product cloud
design system
A: des ign de par tment 1 of
company
B: design department of
com
p
an
y
Design publisher
Check product
Figure1. System architecture of product cloud design.
Figure 2. System functions of product c l oud de sign.
ganization to do the collaborative design work with the
guidance of the cloud design system. During the design
process, different design organization can communicate
in time their design documents and design idea. As the
CAD software from different design department could be
CATIA, UG, Pro/E, Solid works, Cimarron and so on,
their file format could be different, the system could use
STEP-XML as middleware, according to the established
documents transfer agreement change different design
documents into XML document which has smaller data
volume, with the file transformation regulation, change
and transfer the documents between different organiza-
tion. During the design process, manage the version to
solve the version conflict and version traceability. Stor-
age cloud will keep the enterprises’ design resources,
XML format design documents with different version,
and standard components for the product parts and so on.
5. Ontology Construction and Semantic
Annotation of Design Resources
Ontology description use resource description frame
method for cloud design resources and for cloud design
process use web ontology language. The data semantic of
the design resources and the function semantic annota-
tion of design process will be identified in descriptive
language documents.
By building up the cloud design ontology concept sys-
tem, design resources and design process could be up-
per-ontology described and realize instantiation by in-
stantiation tools. Design resources could be published in
the directory management; design process could be pub-
lished with web service. Searching and virtual demon-
stration could be realized by building up virtual server
browser with the rich internet application.
6. Cloud Design Task Intelligent Matching
and Disassemble
Making use of the cloud design searching technology, the
key word searching, construction searching, semantic
searching and other function can be integrated. When
match intelligent semantic, use the method of multi-se-
mantic matching ratio, single service matching and se-
mantic matching between services. When choose and
combine services, use the correlated service guide strat-
egy and service filtering algorithm. And realize service
choosing with the weighting comprehensive jugging
method of parameterized configuration. After choosing
the service, combine the service with service process
description Petri net extensible markup language and
operation process executing language.
7. Draw up File Transform Protocol and
Rule Interchange
To exchange the design files internally or externally in

Collaborative Design Theory and Related Key Technology Study Based on Cloud Computing
21
enterprises, the main issue is how to realize exchanging
between STEP data and XML data. After intensive study
of STEP standard and XML language in the environment
of cloud computing, this paper comes up with the thought
that exchange enterprises’ collaborative design informa-
tion with STEP-XML standard technology and establish
the transition agreement of XML notation of STEP data,
and further analyze and realize XML model base of
product data exchanging. The following drawing Figure
3 describes the way to realize it.
8. Version Management and Conflict
Resolution
During the product design cycle and product develop-
ment process, modification for the design can not be
avoid, this will generate several different versions, so
manage the version generated in design process effi-
ciently will reduce the design cycle and guarantee the
design data can be consistent and reuse. This is signifi-
cant for design cost reducing, design quality improve-
ment and efficiency.
There are two ideas for realization, first is deduc-
tion-version management which means save the differ-
ence between current version and the one before. When
you want use the current version, just add the changed
part to the version before, and then you get it. This is an
easy way to trace the history of the version and amount
of information is small. But the shortco ming is when one
version is lost, the entire version behind will be lost in
the meantime. The other way is save all different ver-
sions with different file names, different versions are
independent, they are only get connected by colophon in
data base in the format of sheet. W ith this way, even one
version in middle is lost; this will not influence other
versions behind. The shortcoming is the amount of in-
formation is huge and to save these files will use a lot of
resources. This collaborative design system uses the
second way as the version management method. Version
relationship model is linear structural model.
In the collaborative design process, a large amount of
conflicts will happen inevitably. Against the design con-
flict in design process, a conflict detection method based
on relation data base is discussed and target restrain in-
formation model for the product is built. And study the
way of express the model with XML and relation data
base. It also comes up with a conflict detection system
construction on the basis of relation data base.
9. Conclusion
The study of this paper is based on cloud computing. It
studies the Product collaborative design theory and pre-
sents a concept of product collaborative design. Also
studied th e related common key technology and bu ild up
a product collaborative design system model based on
cloud computing. Integrate design information of re-
sources of enterprises, ontology construction of the
product is discussed in the environment of cloud com-
puting and provide the standard and integrated informa-
tion. Establish the transition agreement between CAD
file and XML file in the standard of STEP-XML and
based on cloud service. Create XML file which can be
transferred and used quickly through network. Intelli-
gently match and separate the design tasks and mange the
version and solve the version conflict. In the end, inte-
grate the information between different departments,
different enterprises, and between enterprises and con-
sumers, and realize collaborative design.
Extract
Submit
File transform
program
Design product
Design product
STEP files
Transfor m protocol
XML files
Trans form
Design product
XML Scheme
Access
Figure 3. STEP & XML transform mode.

Collaborative Design Theory and Related Key Technology Study Based on Cloud Computing
22
10. Acknowledgment
A Project Supported by Scientific Research Fund of
Zhejiang Provincial Education Department (Y2010
17169).
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