Model-driven Engineering of A Knowledge-base for Assembly Systems: An Architectural View

The assembly process, a pivotal phase in manufacturing, involves the integration of individual components into a finished product. The limited flexibility of the product line often leads to repeated design production, a practice that imposes substantial costs on companies. Concurrently, a diverse array of data and knowledge must be conveyed within this environment to enable various tools to collaborate towards achieving the desired result. For instance, design data is serialized in a step file, while analysis tools present their findings or extract knowledge in a different format (e.g., graph). To curtail product line expenses and establish a user-friendly interface with all aspects of an assembly system, this paper introduces a knowledge base—a repository for storing raw data and extracted knowledge—to bridge design and analysis tools. The proposed knowledge base, developed using model-driven engineering techniques, tackles the primary challenge of mapping and transferring data among disparate sources. The effectiveness of the knowledge base is assessed using case studies from industrial partners in the AssistedDfA project.