Conceptual modelling of a Concurrent Engineering environment

Since the late 1980s it has been suggested that product modelling is the key to computer integrated engineering, which is also a prerequisite for computer assisted concurrent engineering. Later experiences have shown that product modelling alone is not sufficient and that other aspects, such as processes, documents etc. have to be modelled as well. In this paper we suggest environment modelling as an approach which integrates all kinds of construction information, such as the information about products, processes and documents. We propose an environment modelling framework which decomposes an abstract concurrent engineering environment into several modelling spaces. For practical reasons we use a two dimensional orthogonal framework decomposition. Along the first axis the framework is decomposed according to the modelling aspect (construction, information system, generic), and along the second axis according to the level of detail (neutral, aspect, application). In this paper we present the decomposition criteria, the resulting framework and some key components of the environment. Reported is the work in progress performed as part of the EU ESPRIT project ToCEE.