PRODUCT MODELING USING STEP

Concurrent engineering has been recognized as a business philosophy and methodology for integrating all aspects of a product lifecycle into the stages of product design. It demands that, as product design decisions are made, they are immediately evaluated in terms of functionality, manufacturability, assembl-ability, maintainability and recyclability. This requires that the entire enterprise share a common product model at any stage of the product lifecycle. The paper describes in detail the development of a STEP-based generic product modelling (GPM) system which has been designed and implemented according to the integrated resources of STEP and supports a complete product information structure and standard data format. It can therefore be used to integrate a variety of manufacturing activities in a concurrent engineering environment. The GPM system consists of a generic product model, a product model database, a GPM/AutoSolid interface, a GPM/AutoCAD interface, and a user interface. The user can model products using built-in templates. Application systems can either be included in the GPM system, or interact with the GPM system through physical files in accordance with the STEP standard. Examples are included to illustrate the use of the system.