Using Object-Communication for Design Standards Modeling

Abstract

Most current models of design standards are focused on modeling ingredient-dependent relationships and do not provide a facility for modeling standards cross-references. Also, these models are based solely on the standards as the main knowledge source, and do not give support to processing of nonstandard design components. This paper presents a framework for standards modeling that integrates standards, design cases, and product models to handle the design processing of both regular and nonstandard components. It is based on an object-communication approach using both inheritance and delegation concepts of object-oriented software technology. This approach provides a means whereby the standards processor can model various types of explicit and implicit standards cross-references and satisfy the important requirement for nonstandard component design processing of integrating the standards model and the design cases model. Examples are provided to illustrate the applications of this approach.