| This research work concerns three integration issues in the implementation of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM): (1) CIM data and knowledge integration, (2) CIM functionality integration, and (3) architecture of the proposed object-oriented expert database systems.;The first dimension of integration issues involves the integration, processing, and management of data and knowledge in various manufacturing systems, such as computer-aided design, part family formation, computer-aided process planning, and machine cell design systems. This integration issue also involves the integration of various advanced database technologies, such as object-oriented database systems, knowledge-based systems, and relational database systems.;The second aspect of integration deals with the communication between engineering design and subsequent planning and manufacturing tasks. The principal task of this integration dimension involves the development of a uniform knowledge representation of the part description that serves as an efficient communication tool among design and planning. An essential element for the successful implementation of integrated manufacturing systems, the development of a generative GT part family formation system, is a major part of this study. The proposed part family formation system is implemented in two different stages. The first stage of part family formation is to generate the initial part families from a parts sample, drawn from the parts population. The second stage performs the classification of the remaining parts or new parts, groups these new parts into the initially formed part families, or creates new part families.;The third integration issue deals with the development of a modern intelligent database system and new data model for the effective implementation of CIM. A number of advanced information technologies have been adopted: knowledge-based systems/expert systems, object-oriented database systems, relational database systems, distributed database systems, blackboard systems, data dictionary, feature-based CAD language and neural nets. An architecture and a design methodology for the development of Object-Oriented Expert Database Systems (OO-EDS) have been proposed by synthesizing these advanced technologies. |
