Modeling design intent in concurrent engineering

Abstract

Concurrence of design, manufacturing and production engineering in advanced computer aided engineering systems utilizes advanced communication amongst engineers. Engineers who make decisions on objects and their parameters can be easily reached on a computer network at modification of these decisions during later steps of the engineering process. However in practice, huge amounts of decisions are made so that it is impossible to consult with all the original decision makers. Consequently, later modification of a design is often made by engineers other than the original decision makers. This can lead to deterioration of the quality of the design. The authors in this paper propose a method for modeling of design intent as a tool for solving this problem. The proposed model description contains information on what is behind a decision so it can be used at modification of a decision in the lack of the original decision maker. Because an engineer at decision making uses the intent of other engineers, chains of intents and relationships between intents are also to be studied. A product model is considered that is suitable for description of constraints and relationships between model entities and their parameters. The proposed intent description can be utilized at present and future applications, later modification or re-engineering of product models. In this paper, first of all basic concept and the place of the proposed method in the analyzed computer aided engineering process are explained. Then characteristics and content of design intent are described. Following this, representation of design intent and attaching intent data to the model are detailed. Finally, possibilities for application of the results in CAD/CAM modeling environments are concluded.