Application of Product Model for Engineering Process Definition

Integration of all engineering related information in a single complex product model is one of the main purposes in computer system based engineering activities. Because engineering process highly depends on product development and application projects, its definition was first realized in product modeling environments at the application of product data management (PDM) systems. However, this administrative solution could not be integrated with the content of product descriptions. As a contribution to efforts for integration of engineering process definitions in product model, work in a recent research project theoretically grounded the definition of engineering process entities and their connections with product model entities. The author of this paper participated at that project and considered practical points of view in order to reveal possibilities for the implementation of the proposed method in industrial product modeling environments. This paper introduces an analysis on the role of product model in engineering process and characteristics of processes for engineering process definition. Following this, it discusses definition, integration, coordination, content, product, and background related resources of engineering process definition in product model.