The GOODSTEP project: General Object-Oriented Database for Software Engineering Processes

The goal of the GOODSTEP project is to enhance and improve the functionality of a fully object-oriented database management system to yield a platform suited for applications such as software development environments (SDEs). The baseline of the project is the O2 database management system (DBMS). The O2 DBMS already includes many of the features regulated by SDEs. The project has identified enhancements to O2 in order to make it a real software engineering DBMS. These enhancements are essentially upgrades of the existing O2 functionality, and hence require relatively easy extensions to the O2 system. They have been developed in the early stages of the project and are now exploited and validated by a number of software engineering tools built on top of the enhanced O2 DBMS. To ease tool construction, the GOODSTEP platform encompasses tool generation capabilities which allow for generation of integrated graphical and textual tools from high-level specifications. In addition, the GOODSTEP platform provides a software process toolset which enables modeling, analysis and enaction of software processes and is also built on top of the extended O2 database. The GOODSTEP platform is to be validated using two CASE studies carried out to develop an airline application and a business application

Information flow between tools early in the engineering design process

Engineering design processes are recognized by industry as critical for successful new product development. With many existing design processes, it is unexpected that there is not a method for translating between processes. FACETS aims to become a translator between various design processes. To accomplish this, information must be entered, sorted, and displayed in several ways to communicate design intent to the user. A database schema is proposed to store the qualitative information and relationships associated with the early phases of the engineering design process. The proposed database is implemented using a MySQL database. Tools for conducting the needs assessment and concept development are implemented through a series of scripts that provide a user interface to the database. Two case studies test the appropriateness of the database schema and determine areas for further development. The scripts developed render tools for students in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering Multidisciplinary Senior Design class to facilitate navigating the early design process. These scripts will collect the customer driven needs of the project and provide tools to help translate those needs into proposed design(s) to develop further. Information is intended to flow between tools, phases and design processes. To demonstrate the information flow between customer needs and design concepts, a mapping is graphically rendered. Conclusions confirm that the database supports the information contained in the case study. Additional scripts are necessary to provide the graphical wrappers to display the information similar to the case studies. Secondary conclusions highlight a lack of literature regarding the connections between engineering specifications and product functions and the apparent inconsistencies within the quality function deployment House of Quality when implicit relationships are displayed. Recommendations for further work are presented

Web-based CBR (case-based reasoning) as a tool with the application to tooling selection

Over the past few years, manufacturing companies have had to deal with an increasing demand for feature-rich products at low costs. The pressures exerted on their existing manufacturing processes have lead manufacturers to investigate internet-based solutions, in order to cope with growing competition. The decentralisation phenomenon also came up as a reason to implement networked-application, which has been the starting point for internet/intranet–based systems. Today, the availability of powerful and low cost 3D tools, database backend systems, along with web-based technologies, provides interesting opportunities to the manufacturing community, with solutions directly implementable at the core of their businesses and organisations. In this paper a web-based engineering approach is presented to developing a design support system using case-based reasoning (CBR) technology for helping in the decision-making process when choosing cutting tools. The system aims to provide on-line intelligent support for determining the most suitable configuration for turning operations, based on initial parameters and requirements for the cutting operation. The system also features a user-driven 3D turning simulator which allows testing the chosen insert for several turning operations. The system aims to be a useful e-manufacturing tool being able to quickly and responsively provide tooling data in a highly interactive way

A reuse-Oriented Approach for the Construction of Scenario Bases Methods

International audienceDespite the recent interest in scenarios, the development of new methods and tools for Requirements Engineering integrating scenario based approaches has been limited. This paper reports on four different processes developed from research undertaken as part of the CREWS project which the authors believe will improve scenario use and make it more systematic. Furthermore CREWS aims to integrate these approaches into a method for scenario-based requirements engineering. To achieve this objective and be able to include existing approaches such as use case analysis we develop a component based approach which reflects a shift towards a reuse-centric approach to method engineering. The paper presents CREWS method and meta-method knowledge through the implementation of an SGML database to store, retrieve and dynamically compose chunks of CREWS processes

USO DEI PALMARI GNSS PER L’AGGIORNAMENTO CARTOGRAFICO: IL CASO STUDIO DEL COMUNE DI ROCCAMENA (PA)

This work is an example of survey for the map update and run with handheld GNSS and differential corrections data through the network of permanent stations. This case study is about urban drainage systems and lighting subnets within a limited area of the town of Roccamena, Italy. The survey has the primary target the planning of engineering data needed to implement a GIS, the study was performed as mode NRTK with correction VRS, affected, in particular, the wells of public lighting, the wells of white water and sanitation, in addition to the drains around the town, on a total area of approximately 33 square kilometers. Once homogenized the data was developed a Geographic Information System (GIS) with open source tools, paying particular attention to the structuring of the spatial database, designed according to technical rules dictated by the INSPIRE Directive

A knowledge based machine tool maintenance planning system Using case-based reasoning techniques

In advanced manufacturing systems, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine tools are important equipment to manufacture product components of high precision, whilst from equipment maintenance point of view, they are regarded as the ‘products’ provided by machine tool manufacturers. Therefore, the reliability of CNC machine tools affects not only the quality of the components they manufacture, but also the reputation and profits of equipment suppliers. This paper presents a novel knowledge-based maintenance planning system to facilitate information and knowledge sharing between all stakeholders including machine tool manufacturers, users (manufacturing systems), maintenance service providers and part suppliers (for machine tools), in the emerging ‘Product-Service’ business model. Case Based Reasoning principles have been implemented to improve the efficiency of maintenance planning. Ontologies were adopted to represent field knowledge using adaptation guided retrievals based on semantic similarity and correlation. The adaption algorithm has been developed based on the Casual Theory and the dependence relationship to generate the solution for required maintenance problems. The proposed system was implemented using Content Management technologies, which proved to have advantages over traditional database systems in managing engineering knowledge, and has been verified using an example CNC machine tool. The results were commented by industrial collaborators as very promising and further exploitation in industry was recommended

A collaborative platform for integrating and optimising Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis requests

A Virtual Integration Platform (VIP) is described which provides support for the integration of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis tools into an environment that supports the use of these tools in a distributed collaborative manner. The VIP has evolved through previous EU research conducted within the VRShips-ROPAX 2000 (VRShips) project and the current version discussed here was developed predominantly within the VIRTUE project but also within the SAFEDOR project. The VIP is described with respect to the support it provides to designers and analysts in coordinating and optimising CFD analysis requests. Two case studies are provided that illustrate the application of the VIP within HSVA: the use of a panel code for the evaluation of geometry variations in order to improve propeller efficiency; and, the use of a dedicated maritime RANS code (FreSCo) to improve the wake distribution for the VIRTUE tanker. A discussion is included detailing the background, application and results from the use of the VIP within these two case studies as well as how the platform was of benefit during the development and a consideration of how it can benefit HSVA in the future