Future computer-aided design systems will provide a suite of tools capable
of managing the entire product life cycle. Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE
) systems will be used to support many aspects of the product life cycle. F
or a variety of reasons, we believe that CAD developers should not attempt
to provide the required KBE functionality as part of their product. Rather,
the CAD systems should be built with a fully open architecture to allow ea
sy integration of a broad range of KBE software. (C) 2000 Published by Else
vier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.