An expert system interface and data requirements for the integrated product design and manufacturing process

Database technology has been successfully applied to the traditional data processing environment where data are represented by well-formatted records. There is a growing interest in extending this database technology to more advanced application environments such as VLSI CAD/CAM, cartography, etc., where data are less structured and have very complex semantics. In this paper, we describe the data interactions in the design and manufacturing phases which are necessary to integrate the two phases automatically. These data requirements are part of an integrated information support system geared towards the “make to order” design and manufacturing process. An expert system translator to carry out the integration is described and demonstrated in an example. An overall goal of our research is to determine the database support necessary for a completely integrated information support system for generic design and manufacturing processes.