An efficient hierarchical comparison mechanism for cloud-based heterogeneous product lifecycle management systems

Abstract

Cloud computing has enabled various product lifecycle management (PLM) systems from different parts venders to form a heterogeneous system to facilitate joint product development. To avoid the performance issue caused by traversal multiple different PLM systems in hierarchical comparison, in this research we have developed an efficient hierarchical comparison mechanism for cloud-based heterogeneous PLM systems. We have used this mechanism to convert the traditional hierarchical comparison by traversal through the tree type data structure into a string comparison. Our approach is very simple but scalable, and also very suited to the cloud-based heterogeneous PLM system because the method itself is independent to the details of data stores. Therefore we have offered an efficient solution for a specific interoperability problem in cloud-based heterogeneous product lifecycle management systems.