A heterogeneous, active database architecture for engineering data management

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an architecture for engineering data management that incorporates current work on engineering product standards as well as current work in database research. In particular, we present a framework that views an engineering design environment as an integrated, heterogeneous database system. Our integrated view of data makes use of PDES/STEP, presenting a framework for the representation of meta data that describes an object-oriented view of data and supports an object-oriented query language for the retrieval of data from multiple data sources. We also describe how the architecture makes use of active database technology to support n rule-based approach to constraint propagation and change notification. An additional aspect of the architecture presented in this paper is the design history component. We conclude by presenting an extended data management architecture that addresses the requirements for capturing information about the design process as part of the engineering data ...