Engineering information systems: modeling and management

Summary form only given. The goal of an EIS (engineering information system) is to simplify the engineering process enough so that the people involved can focus on getting their work done, without having to spend inordinate amounts of time working with the system. The success of an EIS depends a great deal on how that information is modeled and managed. This poses a very challenging problem, for several reasons. One reason is that the information to be modeled is not at all uniform. In addition, the EIS must operate in a heterogeneous environment. Finally, although the information involved is very complex, it must be modeled in a way that can be understood by all the users of that model: engineers, tool designers, managers, system administrators, and the people who configure and maintain the EIS itself.<>