A complete solution for neutral knowledge representation within collaborative product development environment

Abstract

As product complexity and marketing competition increase, a collaborative product development environment is necessary for production engineers developing high quality products in short lead-times. To support product designers from different fields, disciplines, and locations, wishing to exchange and share data/information, the neutral form product information models, independent of application platforms, are the underlying requirement of the collaborative development environment. In this paper, a complete solution for neutral product information modelling is proposed. A series of issues referring to the representation of product information models are discussed in detail. The system function modelling, product information modelling, and description of product information model are seriatim discussed. Based on STEP standard and IDEF definition methods, taking rolling bearing as an example, an application case of complete product information modelling is stated. Within VC++ environment, the implementation of product information models is described. Lastly, several general rules for product information modelling are stated. The studies provide a set of complete solutions for product information modelling with neutral forms independent of application platforms. It provides a feasible scheme for product information exchange and sharing within collaborative product development and concurrent engineering environments .