The re-use of product knowledge is vital to the development of Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) systems and to the deployment of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) strategies. This paper addresses the challenges related to KBE-PLM systems integration in order to unlock engineering knowledge from proprietary representations and to manage the lifecycle of KBE models as well as their usage by different design automation applications. Essential constituents of product knowledge are identified and analyzed and the concepts of design intent and design rationale are reintroduced as key enablers to re-use this product knowledge in the appropriate KBE context. The paper introduces a KBE-PLM integration framework including a platform-independent Open KBE repository structured according to the KBE-PLM integration schema. This schema is a multi-layer neutral product and knowledge data model designed for integrating information from parameterized Computer-Aided Design (CAD) models, rule-based KBE systems and PLM systems.
The proliferation of 3D technology on many different platforms has made CAD data exchange vital to industrial engineering innovation. The need to share and integrate CAD data, information, and knowledge amongst systems involved in product development has become an important requirement. This requirement is largely determined by a proper communication of design intent, which is usually expressed implicitly within CAD models or tacitly as experiential knowledge from domain experts. However, solutions for CAD data exchange are mostly restricted to the exchange of pure static shape information, restricting their applicability in many downstream processes. This paper suggests methods and strategies for preserving design intent in CAD data exchange. A test case is undertaken to demonstrate the idea and as evidenced in the results, the method proposed helps in capturing and preserving design intent.
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