The framework for an expert system to generate alternative products in concurrent engineering design

Abstract

This paper presents the framework and development of an expert system to generating alternative products based on the information of customers' needs and existing products derived from the product realization model [S. Myint, M.T. Tabucanon, A multi-attribute approach to product realization, Proc. of Pacific Conference on Manufacturing, 1994, pp. 553–560]. Depending on the specific design, the primitive parts and attributes are derived and stored in a database. The generation of alternative products is based on the combination of primitive parts stored in the database, rules developed from the expert system and the weights of the customers' needs. When deriving alternatives, there can be many possible alternatives and thus, the final selection to narrow down all possible alternatives is done by functional grammar approach. The gearbox design is represented as illustrated example.