Capturing, structuring and accessing design rationale in integrated product design and manufacturing processes

Developing customized products is the business case for many manufacturing companies striving to fulfill the customers’ specific needs. When manufacturing customized products it is often necessary to also develop corresponding customized manufacturing tooling. There is a need to support concurrent development of new product variants along with their manufacturing toolsets. The communication between design engineers and manufacturing engineers is hence a key issue that if solved would enable design engineers to foresee how changes in product design affect tooling design and vice versa.