The research of platform-based product configuration model

Abstract

Product configuration system, being a knowledge intensive system, plays an important role in order to realize Mass Customization. The Platform-based generic product configuration tool(PB-GPCT) being developed by Institute of Design for Innovation, Hebei University of Technology. PB-GPCT is a structure-based and domain independent configuration tool. For the realization of PB-GPCT, UML is chosen to construct the configuration model and OCL(Object Constraint Language) to express constraints. In order to manage the constraints of product easily, the approach of checking consistency of configuration model is presented. The theory of constraints hierarchies is introduced into the system of PB-GPCT in order to express customer requirements of different levels.