Information sharing using features technology to support

Abstract

Concurrent engineering is an important philosophy in achieving better time to market in new product development. While the use of design teams is achieving some success there is a need for modern software tools which support the design process to be radically improved. This paper provides a contribution in the area of decision support systems based on the use of product and manufacturing models to provide appropriate information. Typically design for manufacture systems provide only support for one process e.g. design for assembly, design for machining. However, when the full breadth of design for manufacture is considered there are many aspects which must be addressed. This leads to the need for information systems to be able to support multiple views of a product, where each view provides the appropriate representation to support one manufacturing perspective. This paper discusses the requirements of a reasoning system which is able to provide multiple views of a product and which can provide mechanisms to move from one viewpoint to another. The research focuses on injection moulding and considers viewpoints such as product functionality, product mouldability, mould design elements and mould manufacturing viewpoints. A case study product is discussed to illustrate the approach being used.