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System Support for Concurrent Engineering
Computer-aided design tools are linked by ADVANCE technology to more completely integrate co-operative design and management systems
The growing importance of computer assistance in product design means that the integration of the various stages of the process is essential. ADVANCE has produced a set of Common Basic Services (CBS) for the integration of design tools, which greatly enhance co-ordination between the different stages in the development process. This gives a real competitive edge in terms of quality control, development time and cost reduction. Today's concurrent engineering (CE) systems have to rely on the inadequate models and mechanisms provided by conventional database and communication paradigms. They tend to be inefficient, poorly integrated, and very complex, without the dependability which is vital for long development cycles involving many departments and engineers. ADVANCE provides enhanced basic services which can be customised to meet the demands of the end-users of CE in respect to tool interoperability and integration.
The use of information technology to support the development of complex products is rapidly increasing. It leads to a vast number of software tools, each aimed at a different design process and each needing a well-defined place in the overall IT infrastructure. ADVANCE has developed a customised environment which will support communication and collaboration in so-called concurrent engineering. Co-operative design and manufacturing systems will benefit from the ADVANCE technology in all sectors. The second stage of the project implements and evaluates industrial product development scenarios from mechanical and electrical engineering, and illustrates the potential of the enhanced services in these fields.
ADVANCE technology is available as a configurable set of services supporting a co-operative effort in which individuals work with different customised tools in their own geographically-distributed environments. ADVANCE services fill in the gaps 
between commercially available tools by enabling communication between and co-ordination of tools in a distributed environment.
Since the services are modular and customisable, they can be used in a wide range of working environments. Control integration refers to the ability of tools to communicate with each other. The first evaluation and demonstration scenario will assess the integration of a range of commercially available tools from the mechanical/electrical design area in the CBS. Data integration is more difficult, but test environments emulating the behaviour of tools have been used in the first phase of ADVANCE.
Ten different industrial evaluation scenarios using the ADVANCE common basic services for tool integration have been developed. These scenarios stem from a variety of commercial tool environments in the mechanical and electrical engineering domains. They are currently being implemented and evaluated as in-house applications by the industrial partners.
tel +49-22-4114-2755 -- fax +49-22-4114-2105
e-mail nett@gmd.de
Wilfried Fox Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG D-33094 Paderborn Germanytel +49-5251-816-516 -- fax +49-5251-814-902
e-mail fox.pad@sni.de
www http://borneo.gmd.de/RS/Projekte/ADVANCE
Research Area Integration into Manufacturing
Project ADVANCE
Related Results COMBI; FIRES; GEM
Keywords concurrent engineering; co-operative design;
| Project Participants |
|---|
| Dassault Electronique FR |
| GMD DE |
| INCASES Engineering DE |
| Philips NL |
| Shorts Missile Systems Ltd UK |
| Siemens DE |
| Software And Systems Engineering IR |
| Trinity College Dublin IR |
home page | Results Zone | IT Solutions | Application Areas | Research Areas | Integration into Manufacturing The URL for this page is /esprit/src/results/res_area/iim/iim3.htm
This page was last updated on 22 November 1996, and is maintained by esprit@dg3.cec.be