SBD System Design

Abstract

A simulation-based approach to concurrent engineering enables early consideration of downstream life cycle processes by supporting the development of virtual prototypes of products and processes and providing for their simulation and evaluation in synthetic environments rep resenting the entire product life cycle To be effective, a system supporting such an approach must adopt a highly integrated view of concurrent engineering This includes the provision of rich, dynamically extensible product and process descriptions, availability of high-level computing en vironments facilitating assembly and invocation of design analysis tools and simulations, and an overall collaborative framework supporting dis tributed product design and development teams Each of these areas is being incorporated into the development of the Simulation-Based Design (SBD) Phase II system prototype