A Design Tool for Reusing Integration Knowledge in Simulation Models

In the academic field of computer-aided product development, the role of the design tool is to support engineering designers to develop and integrate simulation models. Used to save time and costs in product development process, the simulation model, however, introduces additional costs for its development and integration, which often become considerably large due to the fact that many, complex simulation models need to be integrated. Moreover, the result of integration and the effort taken during the integration process are often not reused for other product development projects. In this paper, we attempt to develop a design tool that can capture integration knowledge and make the knowledge reusable for other design tasks. More specifically, we are interested in the two kinds of integration knowledge: the first captured in the form of a graph structure associating simulation models, called the integration structure, and the second generalized from script codes into rule-based patterns, called the integration code pattern. An integration mechanism and a pattern generalization algorithm have been developed and incorporated into a design tool utilizing a new integration model called catalog model, a model that enables us to reuse the integration structure and code patterns of one model to quickly build another. Application scenarios have demonstrated the effectiveness of the design tool: The same integration task could be performed in less time, and repetitive and error-prone elements in the task were substantially reduced as a result of reusing integration knowledge in the simulation models.