Illustration of object-oriented databases for the structure of a bill of materials

Abstract

In this tutorial paper, the basic concepts of applying an object-oriented database (OODB) system, called orion, to the management of a bill of materials (BOM) is addressed. The illustration attempts to demonstrate the linkage between the needs of a CAD/CAM environment and the production planning environment with specific reference to the material requirements planning (MRP) system of the future. The structure of a composite object made up of objects is the major consideration of the proposed object-oriented BOM (OOBOM). The concentration is on composite objects in the OOBOM schema evolution, their propagations of changing object instances, and the unique object identity of each manufacturing part. The proposed OOBOM system is rudimentary, and may be embodied by using the Itasca™ system, which is a commercial OODB system whose prototype is orion, or by using the c++ language. In this paper, both viewpoints, orion and c++, are discussed. © 1992.