The development process of vibration roller is a collaborative and concurrent process involved with mechanics, electronics and hydraulic disciplines. Poor collaboration among multiple design disciplines can result in frustrating re-work, delayed product launches, blown budgets and sometimes even expensive recalls of shipped products, which is a big challenge to vibration roller development for the traditional Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Workflow technology in vibration roller development is studied and applied in this paper. A workflow model is given, which comprises team member management model and process model. Team member management model defines the organization, the role and the authority of integrated product team (IPT) members involved in the development process of vibration roller. Process model described the general development process of vibration roller, which includes activities, roles related to activities and rules in detailed. According to the models defined above, new workflow software, which is named “Workflow Management System for Mechatronic System” is developed and used to implement the workflow of “the cooperative development of Vibration roller (YZ18JA) of ChangLin Company”. Practice indicates that the implementation of workflow technology can ensure that right information can be delivered to right person at right time in a right way so as to improve the management and control of the whole process, shorten product development cycle and reduce cost.
