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Abstract
The ACES (Aerospace Cost Engineering Systems) team at UWE has been engaged in developing cost models to the aerospace industry for a number of years. These models range from large spreadsheet based tools to knowledge based systems.
The work described in this paper attempts to address some of the issues that have emerged in creating costing tools in the past, namely: -
1) Limited reusability of code/data
2) Lack of sophisticated data structures in spreadsheets
3) Provision of wide access to cost data/knowledge
4) Integration of a wide variety of code/data sources.
The new system is intended for network use. The project uses the open architecture of the Internet to create a system of interacting objects. These objects communicate with systems such as CAD and Databases. This openness ensures that the software can be improved in an evolutionary way.
This paper describes the status of the project.
Keywords
Aerospace, Tooling, Design, Manufacture, Decision Support, Knowledge Base, XML (Extensible Markup Language)
This Paper HTML Version (Updated) - HTML - Provision of a Web Based Decision Support System for Wing Box Tooling
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Abstract
This paper outlines the tools and technologies used, or to be used in the DECIDE (Decision Evaluation and Costing In Developmental Engineering) decision support system. The tools and technologies investigated are manufacturing costing, taxonomies and ontologies, structured languages, and user driven programming, information sharing, and simulation. These are all required in order to make a manufacturing decision support system effective, and they must be used in a coherent way. The work of specialists in these areas is described and evaluated. This can help give an understanding to the non-specialist about how an overall system can be constructed from these parts. The University of the West of England Implied Cost Evaluation System (ICES) group have produced manufacturing decision support systems. This paper investigates the research underway into migration of these systems to a collaborative web environment. The research aim is to make it possible to create a generic decision support system, and also to investigate ways for users to create programs within the environment of a knowledge based system.
This Paper HTML Version (Updated) - HTML - preliminary findings from the DECIDE project
This Paper Word Version (Updated) - MSWord - preliminary findings from the DECIDE project
This Paper Adobe Acrobat (Updated) - PDF - preliminary findings from the DECIDE project
Abstract
At the University of the West of England we are involved in a project with Rolls-Royce AeroEngines. This is the Design Analysis Tool for Unit-cost Modelling (DATUM) project. The aim of this project is to produce a knowledge based system which is capable of costing an aircraft engine and its' sub-components, and generating a process plan for the manufacture of the engine. From this we hope to learn how to develop a generic knowledge-based system that could be used for the manufacture of any product. We also hope to learn about the best methods for using software to share knowledge within and between organisations. We are researching how to structure this knowledge in such a way as to make it easy to retrieve both by humans and automated software. We are also examining how to visualise the results output from the software in a way which carries the meaning to the user. Our preferred method of delivery for this project is the use of open-standard Web technologies such as XML (eXtensible Markup Language). This will be used to provide a high level view of information held in distributed data sources.
Keywords
Parametric Costing, Generative Costing, Decision Support, Knowledge Management, XML
This Paper HTML Version - HTML - Design and Prototyping of Knowledge Management Software for Aerospace Manufacturing
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Abstract
The Systems Engineering Estimation and Decision Support (SEEDS) team is part of the Aerospace Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) at the University of the West of England Bristol (UWE). SEEDS expertise is in working with aerospace organisations to apply techniques in managing, categorising and visualising information to support costing of products within the aerospace sector.
Keywords
User Driven Programming; Ontology; Semantic Web; Decision Support; Modelling
This paper outlines techniques used, in order to enable decision support during product development, whilst minimising dependence on specialist software and detailed programming effort. The basis of this is an Ontology that can be visualised and edited in tree form. The open standard Stanford University Ontology tool Protégé is being used for this purpose. This Ontology can be translated into a commercial Decision Support tool called DecisionPro. Software created using DecisionPro allows calculations of the cost of a design, and provides a colour-coded representation of the product tree. It is then possible to output this tree in the form of web pages, interactive diagrams and code in programming languages such as Engineous' Java based costing tool Cost Estimator. It is possible to search the information both in Protégé and on the Web as it is represented using searchable semantic web languages.
This Paper HTML Version - HTML - Enabling Decision Support and Costing of Product Designs by using Visual Metaphors
This Paper Word Version - MSWord - Enabling Decision Support and Costing of Product Designs by using Visual Metaphors
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