New Design Objective and Human Intent-based Management of Changes for Product Modeling

This paper is concerned with the evaluation of effects of modeled object changes at development of product in virtual space. Modeling of engineering objects such as elements and structures of products, results of analyses and tests, processes for production, and customer services has reached the level where sophisticated descriptions and modeling procedures serve lifecycle management of product information (PLM). However, effective utilization of highly associative product models is impossible in current modeling because techniques are not available for tracking and evaluation of high number of associative relationships in large product model. The author analyzed the above problem and considered inappropriate organization of product information as its main cause. In order to gain a solution in current modeling systems, a new method is proposed in this paper for change management. In this method, joint modeling of design objectives and human intent is applied for shape-centered products. As background information for the proposed modeling, paper discusses research results in change management for product development in modeling environments. Following this, integrated modeling of closely related engineering objects is proposed as extension to current industrial PLM systems. Next, design objective driven product change management is detailed. Finally, virtual space is outlined as a possible advanced application of the proposed change management with the capability of representation of human intent.