Flexible Automation and Integrated Manufacturing 1996

ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-067-2

CONSTRAINT MANAGEMENT AND DESIGN MODELS IN SUPPORTING RE-DESIGN

DOI: 10.1615/FAIM1996.390
pages 363-372

Abstract

This paper describes a framework for supporting the re-design of mechanical artefacts: the DEKLARE project (ESPRIT 6522). The motivation of DEKLARE results from a shift in the manufacturing market from a product selected from a catalogue to a product specified by the customer. This means that adaptive/variant design accounts for the majority of industrial design activity. Traditional CAD systems do not support re-design since they lack abstractions of both designed artefact and process. The objectives of the project include improvement of design quality, reduction of design time, retention of design(er) expertise and documentation of design decisions. We illustrate the components of the DEKLARE framework: (a) design analysis methodology (DDAM): a tool to acquire and describe the company product expertise; (b) design description language (DDL): a language to model concisely the acquired design knowledge; (c) design advisory system (DAS): a computer system to help the designer to generate new designs consistent with the design knowledge.