Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation in the Public Works ...

Sharing Experience Between Manufacturing and Construction
5.5 Three Fundamental Requirements
Among the above 16 functional requirements of concurrent engineering tools, three are most
fundamental (12,18) to software development as indicated by the axes of Figure 6. The X axis
represents "perspectives" which refer to different life-cycle concerns such as function, structure,
manufacturing, and maintenance. On the Y axis, "stages" indicate the current stage of decisionmaking
activities, ranging from the early stage of conceptualization to the final stage of detailed
analyses and production. The Z axis represents "participants" and refers to the number of
engineers required for developing a competitive product. It is interesting to note that most
conventional, computer-aided engineering tools available to date only support a single
perspective, are biased toward a particular stage, and are only suitable for an individual user.
These tools are represented as a single point at [0,0,01 in Figure 6. In contrast, computer tools
for concurrent engineering must ideally be able to incorporate multiple perspectives, support
multiple stages, and work with multiple participants. They are represented by the volume of the
[1,1,1] cube in Figure 6. Basic research efforts are needed to extend current computer-aided
automation technologies from zero-dimension (a single point at [0,0,0]) to three-dimension (the
volume of [1,1,1] cube) to support concurrent product development (19).
6. Some Recent Results
There are many different approaches available for developing concurrent engineering computer
tools. Good examples are the Taguchi method (20) and the Axiomatic design principle which
have been explored as ways to support design and manufacturing integration (21). In fact, since
concurrent engineering is a system-level problem, any approach that can improve on system
solutions is useful. In this section, we will introduce some recent results from an extended Albased
approach, called the Knowledge Processing Technology (KPT).
6.1 The Basic Concept of Knowledge Processing
The need for developing computer tools that can handle multiple perspectives, stages, and
participants calls for a new automation foundation beyond the current foundation which is based
on the data processing technology (DPT). We developed KPT as a new foundation which
allowed us to build computer tools that could manipulate higher level information contents than
what was possible with DPT. In a generic sense, KPT can be defined as a logical set of software
techniques, from both Al research and traditional engineering methods, that can increase the
utility of engineering knowledge to support complex decision making tasks (22). An important
concept of KPT is the distinction between data and knowledge. Both knowledge and data are
problem-solving information with different representations and utilities. Knowledge represents
the structure, meaning, usage, justifications, interpretations, and other high-level concepts of data.
In contrast to data, knowledge is more flexible, comprehensible, and can be dynamically
inferenced (rather than statically retrieved). While data keeps records of past events, knowledge
lies within the models that give proper meaning to data for future applications.
Due to the above differences, processing data is sufficient for interfacing of mass-production
automation tasks while processing knowledge is required for integration of highly flexible
production systems. Interfacing and integration differ in the method and degree by which
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