A concurrency control model for PDM systems

In today's manufacturing environment, enterprises having work groups geographically dispersed are not uncommon. A product data management (PDM) system is therefore required for controlling the distribution and maintaining the integrity of the product data throughout its entire lifecycle; the efficiency of a PDM system is greatly affected by the concurrency control method it adopts. The paper proposes a concurrent control model for PDM that can also caters for version management and product architecture. The paper discusses how granularity and versioning are being embedded into a lock-based concurrency control model. The concurrent accessibility of an example product data is explained to illustrate the adjustability according to the actions taken by the users and the architecture of the corresponding entities.