Knowledge-based environment for the generation of rapid product development processes

摘要

This paper introduces a knowledge-based environment dedicated to the choice of rapid product development processes. Rapid product development processes are not limited to layer-manufacturing machines, but they also integrate CAD, reverse engineering, indirect methods for metallic and plastic part manufacturing, etc. Due to short delays, people have no time to test and compare different solutions of rapid product development. Even if people have time, tests are time and money consuming. It is also very difficult for someone to know all about industrial technologies, and to be able to evaluate a multi-criteria choice in a short time. The aim of the proposed knowledge-based environment is to propose, from a detailed functional specification, different alternatives of rapid product development processes, which can be ordered and optimized when considering a combination of different specification criteria (cost, quality, delay, aspect, material, etc).