Intelligent Content for Product Definition in RFLP Structure

This paper introduces a new contribution to high level abstraction assisted product definition methodology. The aim is enhanced knowledge representation for high level concept driven definition of multidisciplinary industrial products. The background of the proposed method is product definition in the requirement, functional, logical, and physical (RFLP) structure. This is the basis of four level abstraction based new generation of product lifecycle modeling. The problem to be solved by the proposed method is definition of content, control, and connections of R, F, L, and P elements. Usual dialogues at user surfaces require too complex thinking process which motivated research in intelligent assistance of RFLP element generation at the Laboratory of Intelligent Engineering Systems (LIES), Obuda University. As preliminary result, abstraction on five levels was conceptualized and published at the LIES for product definition six years ago. The emergence of RFLP structures in leading PLM systems motivated refurbishing this abstraction for the new requirements. The result is the initiative, behavior, context, and action (IBCA) structure which organizes multiple human influence request originated content for the generation of RFLP structure elements and connects request definition with RFLP structure element and conventional feature generation through its four levels. Self adaptive product model concept was extended. Consequently, the IBCA structure driven model reconfigures and updates itself for new situations and events. This paper introduces recent relevant results in human controlled product model development. Following this, changes caused by RFLP structure in PLM model, the IBCA structure and its driving connections, and embedding IBCA structure in PLM model are discussed. Integration of IBCA structure in typical PLM model structure and implementation are issues in the rest of the paper.