An integrated graphical user interface (GUI) for concurrent engineering design of mechanical parts

Due to increasing competition in the manufacturing industry, the search for shorter product development and production cycles and lower cost has led to the emergence of concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering is the practice whereby the design needs to simultaneously consider various downstream activities throughout the entire product life cycle, in addition to meeting the products' functions. This calls for an integrated design environment that will enable the engineers to evaluate multiple constraints from manufacturing, assembly, services, etc. at the design stage. This research develops a prototype for such an integrated graphical user interface (GUI), the Integrated Concurrent Engineering Design for Mechanical Parts (ICEDMP), in concurrent engineering. Using ICEDMP, the user can access product data from different domains of computerized tools in one software system and evaluate the design of mechanical products based on criteria of Design for Manufacturing (DFM) and Design for Assembly (DFA). Modules of ICEDMP include (1) a web-based on-line user's guide, (2) a part library, (3) a design guidelines checklist, (4) a part modeler linked to CAD (Pro/Engineer), (5) a part feature converter using Practical Extraction and Report Language (PERL), and (6) a knowledge-based design critique system. Parts created by Pro/Engineering CAD system are represented by features using the PERL feature converter. The design's consequential impact on manufacture and assembly is then evaluated by the knowledge-based design critique system implemented by CLIPS. Two design examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the ICEDMP system. Using ICEDMP, the user is able to evaluate the designs using DFM and DFA criteria and obtain suggestions to improve the design in one integrated software environment. This will result in fewer costly design changes acid thus reduce product development time and production cost. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.