Sequence Control for Integrated Structural Design Models

Abstract

An initial step in developing a computer-integrated system for structural design is to create a formal description of the information and activities involved in design. The formal description provides a clear understanding of and a theoretical basis for the computer-integrated design system before the system is implemented. A design model based on entities and relationships can be used to formally describe design information and activities. Product entities describe the information produced during the design process, and process entities describe associated activities. The relationships among the entities of a design model include organizational, interaction, and sequence relationships. Previous research had developed formal concepts and notation for representing organizational relationships such as aggregation/decomposition and generalization/specialization. This paper focuses on the representation of sequence relationships. The sequence relationships of a design model describe the possible sequences in which the process entities (representing design activities) can be initiated during the design process. This paper outlines sequence relationships in a model for structural design and presents a formal notation for representing sequence relationships based on context-free grammars.