Computer-aided production engineering

Work is currently underway at the United States National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on CAPE systems.

The NIST project is aimed at advancing the development of software environments and tools for the design and engineering of manufacturing systems.

Engineering tools built by different vendors must be made compatible through open systems architectures and interface standards.

Using CAPE, an engineering team will prepare detailed plans and working models for an entire factory in a matter of days.

These capabilities exist to a limited extent in some general purpose commercial software today, e.g., word processors, databases, spreadsheets.

These issues include: There are three critical elements to be addressed: creating a common manufacturing systems information model; using an engineering life cycle approach; and developing a software tool integration framework.

Therefore, a life cycle approach is needed to identify the different processes that a CAPE environment must support, and must define all phases of a manufacturing system or subsystem's existence.

Phases may be repeated over time as a system is upgraded or re-engineered to meet changing needs or incorporate new technologies.

The framework would define how CAPE tools would deal with common services, interact with each other and coordinate problem solving activities.

Although some existing software products and standards currently address the common services issue, the problem of tool interaction remains largely unsolved.

Functions supported by the current COTS environment include: system specification/diagramming, process flowcharting, information modeling, computer-aided design of products, plant layout, material flow analysis, ergonomic workplace design, mathematical modeling, statistical analysis, line balancing, manufacturing simulation, investment analysis, project management, knowledge-based system development, spreadsheets, document preparation, user interface development, document illustration, forms and database management.