Automotive vehicle data management based on holon-product paradigm

This paper describes research being carried out in the area of holonic manufacturing systems, especially for automotive vehicle data management. The originality of the presented work deals with the idea that process control may be achieved by machines, but also by the product carrying and managing its own information. Distribution of the information system onto each individual product requires tools and methods to manage and provide access to product related information for both automated systems and human operators. Automatic identification technology using electronic data carriers can provide such functionality and act as product information vectors. Our approach is based on STEP technology to define computer-aided tools for data structuring and management of product knowledge implemented on mobile database nodes circulating in an open environment (from manufacturing to recycling).