Market demands are moving manufacturing from mass production to mass customization. To quickly respond to customer needs, product development teams have to work together in a collaborative design environment. The paper presents a product data driven approach to tracking of design changes in a collaborative design environment. In this research, design processes are analyzed to identify product data for tracking design changes. The relationships between product data are established using predecessor-successor, master-subordinate, and geometric constraint relationship types. Forward tracking and backward tracking are designed and implemented to identify impacts of a design change. A prototype system has been implemented to verify the effectiveness of the approach. Finally, a milling machine fixture is used as a design example to show how this approach works. The proposed approach provides a fundamental mechanism to promptly notify other designers of design changes in a collaborative design environment.
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