Improved support for engineering using information technology involves
the integration of existing, evolving and future product data, and so
ftware that processes that data. For this reason, there is increasing
interest in the representation of product data in the computer to supp
ort computer-aided engineering applications. To avoid duplication and
inconsistency, and to support the use of new implementation technology
as it emerges, conceptual models of product data are required. Such m
odels are independent of the software and hardware environments in whi
ch they are implemented. System architectures to support the integrati
on of applications at implementation time are becoming an accepted par
t of engineering information systems. We contend that, to use these so
ftware support environments effectively, integrated product data is re
quired. Further, it must be possible to extend the integrated product
data in a controlled fashion ii it is to evolve to support future engi
neering applications effectively. A framework that is a part of the pr
oduct data, at the conceptual modeling (rather than the implementation
) stage, is shown to help to satisfy these requirements. The framework
presented here is a structure for the information content of product
data rather than for the implementation of such data. Our research has
shown that product data based on the framework can be successfully im
plemented in a number of different forms, for example, network, relati
onal, and object-oriented databases. This paper describes a framework
for electromechanical product data that has been implemented in a stru
cture editor and is currently being used to support a range of enginee
ring applications. We show that the process of product data integratio
n can be improved by using existing integration strategies in conjunct
ion with a framework that provides an overall organization for the dat
a.