A Federated Enterprise Architecture and MBSE Modeling Framework for Integrating Design Automation into a Global PLM Approach

Abstract

PLM and Design Automation (DA) are two interdependent and necessary approaches to increase the performance and efficiency of product development processes. Often, DA systems' usability suffers due to a lack of integration in industrial business environments stemming from the independent consideration of PLM and DA. This article proposes a methodological and modeling framework for developing and deploying DA solutions within a global PLM approach. This framework supports the identification of DA potentials and the definition of the DA task building blocks to support DA task formalization by practitioners. The aim is to make the specification and development of DA solutions more efficient and aligned with the business requirements and with the existing digital environments. This framework combines the usage of two standardized modeling languages to make the captured knowledge re-usable across heterogeneous PLM and DA applications. An industrial case study demonstrating the applicability of the framework is introduced and discussed.

Design Automation State of Practice - Potential and Opportunities

“…Thus, designers employed at large companies might not receive latest information from software vendors and are usually not directly involved in the specification and implementation of design automation solutions. A potential means to support designers is the development of methods to enable designers to identify and specify design automation task themselves (Vosgien et al, 2017). Considering knowledge about design automation, interestingly, most SMEs have knowledge about design automation and occasionally, design automation is also applied in SMEs, as depicted in Figure 8.…”

Enterprise Architecture Method for Continuous Improvement of PLM Based on Process Mining

“…CAx [30] or design automation [31], [32]. Still, the works presented in [33], [34] have shown that the principles of enterprise architecture are also applicable in a PLM context. Hence, in this work methods of enterprise architecture are also used for the design and monitoring of PLM strategies.…”