Fixturing System in an Information Model Based Concurrent Engineering Environment

A distinguishing aspect of concurrent engineering is the intensive informa ion interchange between areas that are involved with the product life cycles. Shared information structures to integ ate different software applications have become necessary to support effectively the interchange o informa ion. While much work done in product model and manufactu ing model, there is a need to make them able to support fixture design and planning related activities. An important part of modern design and manufactu e activities is to ensure that effective manufacturing decisions are made in the early stage of the product development process. A possible effective approach in this area is the use of information models, which can provide a useful information support to a range of applications in a concurrent engineering environment. The key problem discussed in this research is the structures of informa ion models to support the interactions between fixture planning, process planning and product design for fixtu ing applications. A software support environment is described which consist of three significan areas; product information, manufacturing informa ion, and a set of fixturing data driven applications. The issues related to the data structures required for product model and manufacturing model are discussed and object-oriented solutions are proposed.