Modeling of the background of human activities in engineering modeling

Description of product information in conventional computer models includes simple facts appropriate as input information for creation of derived model entities as additional product objects, finite elements and manufacturing processes. The related procedures are controlled by humans interactively. In order to do this effectively, humans need information about original decisions resulted the model information, especially when an original design should be modified in order to its development or fit it to changed environmental conditions. As preliminaries of the work reported in this paper, the authors proposed a method for description of design intent information in product models that assists engineers at application and modification of earlier defined model entities. As a contribution to bring this method into application, this paper has two purposes. The first is to introduce role of intent model and the problematic of its integration in product model. The second one is a discussion of characteristics of intent model as composition, elements and relations. The paper is organized accordingly. An additional discussion highlights some implementation issues for modeling intent in the industrial practice