Title: An agent-based software for mechanical design

Authors: Georgios Andreadis; Pavlos Katsonis

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 24 Papapetrou str, 55131, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 24 Papapetrou str, 55131, Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract: In this paper, we discuss a way to further support product development and manufacturing in mechanical engineering. The method used to achieve this is the development of a software framework that mainly aims to integrate the various stages of the aforementioned procedure, resulting in concurrent engineering. The framework makes extensive use of networking and software agent technology, in order to result in a flexible and decentralised system, allowing its users to enjoy the maximum amount of freedom in the way they work and collaborate with each other. Since the poorest supported stage is the design process, the main concern is to enable data and knowledge flow from the rest of the development and manufacturing stages to the design process. Various parts of the framework, search and collect information, in order to supply the designer with useful advices and data.

Keywords: computer aided design; CAD; distributed systems; mechanical design; manufacturing; software agents; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; MAS; networking; data flow; knowledge flow; design process; product development; product design; concurrent engineering; simultaneous engineering.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAET.2014.063114

International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology, 2014 Vol.6 No.3, pp.293 - 309

Published online: 26 Jul 2014 *

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