A STEP TOWARD STEP-COMPATIBLE ENGINEERING DATA MANAGEMENT - THE DATA MODELS OF PRODUCT STRUCTURE AND ENGINEERING CHANGES

In an iterative design process, there is a large amount of engineering data to be processed. Well-managed engineering data can ensure the co mpetitiveness of companies in the competitive market. It has been reco gnized that a product data model is the basis for establishing enginee ring database. To fully support the complete product data representati on in its life cycle, an international product data representation and exchange standard, STEP, is applied to model the representation of a product. In this paper, the architecture of an engineering data manage ment (EDM) system is described, which consists of an integrated produc t database. There are six STEP-compatible data models constructed to d emonstrate the integratibility of EDM system using common data modelin g format. These data models are product definition, product structure, shape representation, engineering change, approval, and production sc heduling. These data models are defined according to the integrated re sources of STEP/ISO 10303 (Parts 41-44), which support a complete prod uct information representation and a standard data format. Thus, appli cation systems, such as CAD/CAM. and MRP systems, can interact with th e EDM system by accessing the database based on the STEP data exchange standard. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.