COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY FOR CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING (CE) PROVIDES THE MEANS FOR SHORTENING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SCHEDULES, REDUCING ACQUISITION COST, AND IMPROVING PRODUCT QUALITY BY ENABLING SIMULTANEOUS, INTEGRATED, AND PARALLEL EFFORTS ON RESEARCH, DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, MANUFACTURING, AND OTHER SUPPORT PROCESSES. THE PROPOSED PROJECT WILL DEMONSTRATE THE FEASBILITY OF INNOVATIVE COLLABORATION TECHNOLOGY FOR ELECTRONIC MANAGEMENT OF DESIGN DATA. THE SOFTWARE WILL BE BASED ON INFORMATION SERVER AND HYPERTEXT. KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOFTWARE WILL PROVIDE INTELLIGENT, SEMI-AUTOMATED MANAGEMENT OF THE DATA. THE SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE WILL SUPPORT MUTLI-USER AND MULTIFUNCTION ACCESS TO THE DESIGN DATABASE AS WELL AS SEMI-AUTOMATED CONSTRAINT/DESIGN CONSISTENCY REVIEW. THE SOFTWARE WILL ADHERE TO OPEN STANDARDS FOR USER INTERFACING AND NETWORKING. IN PHASE I, WE WILL SHOW THE FEASBILITY OF OUR SOFTWARE APPROACH BY DEVELOPING A DETAILED SOFTWARE DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, AND PERFORMING PROOF-OF-CONCEPT PROTOTYPING. THE FULL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING PROGRAM WILL TAKE PLACE DURIGN PHASE II. ANTICIPATED BENEFITS: THE PROPOSED SOFTWARE WILL PROVIDE IMPROVED MEANS FOR INTELLIGENT, AUTOMATED MANAGEMENT OF DESIGN INFORMATION BY DOD CONTRACTORS AND COMMERCIAL FIRMS. RESULTING APPLICATION OF CE WILL RESULT IN FASTER AND LESS EXPENSIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS.