DYNAMIC LINKING AND RETRIEVAL OF PRODUCT MODELS TO PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESSES

In product development processes, the retrieval of the right product information at the right time is an important factor to maintain efficient and effective processes. Existing approaches use e.g. software support like workflow and process management systems, where information in general is rigidly linked to the predefined processes. However, product development processes are characterized by iterations and dynamic sequences of process steps, which cannot be defined in advance of the actual happening of a process step. This leads to slowed down processes and even misinformation of the engineers. Under this circumstance, this paper introduces a novel approach to link product models to development processes dynamically. This approach follows the objective to provide users with most useful product information semi automatically, even if the process plan of the project has to be changed unpredictably. After the analysis of information retrieval in the industrial context, the development of a parameter based description method for product models is explained including a correlation analysis of the parameters. Finally, the prototypic software implementation of the approach is presented.