Autonomic Product Development Process Automation

• Main Author: Daley, John E.
• Format: Others
• Published: BYU ScholarsArchive 2007
• Subjects: automation; integration; optimization; multidisciplinary optimization; web services; semantic web; ontology; multi-agent systems; autonomic systems; process modeling; mass customization; product development; CAD; CAx; workflow; process improvement; Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/965; https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1964&context=etd

Market globalization and mass customization requirements are forcing companies towards automation of their product development processes. Many task-specific software solutions provide localized automation. Coordinating these local solutions to automate higher-level processes requires significant software maintenance costs due to the incompatibility of the software tools and the dynamic nature of the product development environment. Current automation methods do not provide the required level of flexibility to operate in this dynamic environment. An autonomic product development process automation strategy is proposed in order to provide a flexible, standardized approach to product development process automation and to significantly reduce the software maintenance costs associated with traditional automation methods. Key elements of the strategy include a formal approach to decompose product development processes into services, a method to describe functional and quality attributes of services, a process modeling algorithm to configure processes composed of services, a method to evaluate process utility based on quality metrics and user preferences, and an implementation that allows a user to instantiate the optimal process. Because the framework allows a user to rapidly reconfigure and select optimal processes as new services are introduced or as requirements change, the framework should reduce burdensome software maintenance costs associated with traditional automation methods and provide a more flexible approach.