Managing Product and Process Knowledge in CAD-Systems

• In order to codify, manage, and reuse the knowledge gained from pursing product development projects, CAD-programs have started to provide functionality for supporting this activity. Since the primary purpose of the CAD program is to interactively define geometry, the functionality has been integrated primarily to be used on the parameters of the CAD-model of the design instance. This paper explores how the functionality can be used in a broader scope, managing and automatically reusing knowledge for all designs intended for a certain production process. This is facilitated by automatically converting an arbitrary CAD-model of a design to a format that is accessible for knowledge handling and reuse functionality in the CAD-system. A conversion algorithm for the processes die-casting and powder metallurgy pressing sintering is presented, as well as showing how the knowledge can be represented in the CAD-system. This will allow engineers to actively participate in the knowledge build-up and insure that the general knowledge can be handled in the companies’ IT-infrastructure.

Keyword

Production process

Knowledge-based engineering

CAD

Application programming

Knowledge management

Mechanical engineering

Maskinteknik

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