An Innovative Approach to PMI Analysis and Enhancing Information Flow Efficiency

Abstract

Model Based Definition (MBD) technology has evolved over the last two decades to become the core of digital product development, containing all Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) as a source of data for the future product lifecycle, and offers unparalleled advantages in terms of information storage and intuitive labelling compared to paper-based engineering drawings. However, as digitisation increases, the number of product types and the correspondingly more complex manufacturing processes, neutral data formats are often distorted or even lost when used across systems, leading to design and manufacturing errors. Therefore, there is a need to build a bridge between information interactions so that models can be accurately and efficiently transferred from one computer-aided design system to another. This paper proposes a method for unifying PMI structures by analysing STEP files to establish geometric dimensions and tolerances, annotating and decomposing several types of generic geometric elements into basic dimensional elements and positional information, establishing intuitive model-PMI relationships, and extracting the elements required for the exchange process and storing them in a STEP parser for PMI product information construction between different systems. Through experimental analysis, the method proposed in this paper has been shown to be highly accurate in exchanging information between three different CAD systems, achieving clarity, certainty and consistency at different stages of the product lifecycle. This STEP file approach enables structured analysis of data and significant savings in time costs and human resources.

Keywords

• Feature extraction
• PMI
• semantic representation
• STEP
• tolerance semantics