To shorten product development lifecycles for machined powertrain components, it is necessary to develop technologies around integrated product design, process planning and system design. This integration should enable information once created to be readily available across all activities of the lifecycle. A key to achieving this is the creation of an information model for capturing and relating this information. This model should be comprehensive and easily navigable to enable, for instance, manufacturing engineers to trace tasks on the stations in a machining line to specific surfaces on in-process states of the workpiece. Also of importance are strategies that specify how instances of this model are created and how it is to be maintained. This paper presents information models created specifically for powertrain machining. These models have been implemented as a database within a framework for integrated product design, process planning and system design. An XML (extensible Markup Language) application based on the model has also been developed to standardize interfaces and facilitate communication within product development teams and with suppliers.
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