ADVANCED INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN THE FORGE SHOP

This work addresses the problems of managing complex engineering infor mation in a production forging environment. Using the forge shop MSP I ndustries as its case study, it outlines the experimental procedures t hat were introduced and their results. A custom-designed relational da tabase was developed in order to better organize the development, dist ribution and control of critical information such as press setup param eters, lubrication settings and tooling dimensions. The procedures wer e found to be successful and are currently in use. (C) 1997 Elsevier S cience S.A.