Towards a generic product modelling framework

In response to the current rapidly changing manufacturing environment, product modelling technology has been widely applied to provide the essential information for product development (PD) processes. The traditional product modelling technologies are unable to support the information exchange and share in various stages of PD processes that could be taken place among departments in a company or even among companies in distributed manufacturing environment. This has caused many problems such as information loss, data format incompatibility and reduced efficiency and effectiveness of product data applications. This has consequently created bottlenecks for the integration of PD processes. In this paper, a generic product modelling framework (GPMF) is proposed to overcome the abovementioned problems in today's manufacturing environment. This framework uses the standard for the exchange product model data (STEP) as a foundation. It consists of four functional components: an EXPRESS data model namely EDM; a STEP-based modelling environment; a "five-phase" modelling method; and three EDM data exchange and sharing methods. Case studies show that the product models built based on the GPMF are capable of integrating information in product design, manufacturing and assembly. The GPMF is compatible, comprehensive, and flexible, and is able to support information exchange and sharing.