Layering an Engineering Information System

In this note we define a layering intended to structure the many concepts which arise in the development of an Engineering Information System. The industrial benefits to be gained by such a layering are enumerated. 1. OBJECTIVE An Engineering Information System (EIS) is a collection of facilities and services that provide support for the design, testing, manufacture, and maintenance of engineering artifacts, and for the managerial and administrative concerns that accompany these tasks. Engineers and their managers engaged in hardware, software, mechanical, and architectural design, or other complex engineering activities involving large amounts of information, will benefit from the availability of EIS services, which we expect to become widespread in the next decade. The need for EIS services is particularly acute in the digital hardware engineering domain. As more and more circuitry is packed onto VLSI chips, no single engineer can have a full grasp of the the chip design. Instead, t..