Intelligence for the Assistance of Engineering Decisions in Associative Product Modeling

Highly integrated and extended application of product model based engineering using product lifecycle management systems is the most important recent achievement in computer aided engineering. Continuous development of products and their variants placed management of changes of engineering objects during development of product in the centre of investigations in product modeling. The authors joined to these efforts by a new methodology using extended definition of features. In this paper, definitions of active features for object descriptions are introduced and a four-leveled model for definition of behavior, adaptivity, and associativity features is proposed for highly integrated product models. Following this, engineering object descriptions in highly integrated model units and handling of effects related to changes of engineering objects are proposed. Next, difference between the recently prevailing and the proposed modeling is detailed. Finally, including knowledge in a three-leveled model, definition of human intent filtered knowledge, and conflicts at decisions are detailed as issues at modeling of engineering objects.