A Network-Integrated Feature-Driven Engineering Environment: Information Modeling and Process Management

Conventional data-centric integration approaches assume that the end-users are fully responsible for work-flow control, data consistency and integrity maintenance and inter-process coordination, generally without computer augmentation. The objective of this study is to develop a network-integrated engineering environment with an expanding set of system capabilities that can off-load engineers from some of these responsibilities and complexity, based on an integration approach which is both data- and process-centric. The envisioned system is configured on top of a generic CAX framework with a process management module encapsulated for assisting engineers to carry out a set of tightly-interrelated engineering activities in a product development cycle following a feature-driven process pattern. Sheet metal products using progressive dies were selected as the demonstration case to show two main aspects of the approach: information modeling and implementation of the process management module.