Computing intensive definition of products

Abstract

By their widespread application, engineering virtual spaces together with computation methods play key role in product information management in order to assist product definition and the relevant decisions. Research in order to include hard and soft computing methods in well organized product model of increasing intelligence is a main objective of product model development efforts. This paper is a contribution to these efforts by a possible method for including a higher level knowledge based modeling as extension to the currently applied product models. After an introduction of relevant characteristics of engineering problem solving, role of soft computing is discussed. Following this, extending of knowledge integration in product model by the proposed method is explained and new features for the extended product model are introduced. Finally, the proposed new context structure is outlined and its implementation in product lifecycle management (PLM) systems is conceptualized. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.