Model-based definition design in the product lifecycle management scenario

Model-based definition (MBD) is a new strategy of product lifecycle management (PLM) based on computer-aided design (CAD) models transition from simple gatherers of geometrical data to comprehensive sources of information for the overall product lifecycle. With MBD, most of the data related to a product are structured inside native CAD models, instead of being scattered in different forms through the PLM database. MBD aims are suppression of redundant documents and drawings, better data consistency, better product/process virtualization, and better support for all computer-aided technologies tasks under engineering and manufacturing disciplines. Developing MBD today, for a medium- to large-sized company in the automotive and aerospace sectors, deals primarily with its fundamentals: data structures. Companies need a common approach to structure data in reusable, unified forms inside native three-dimensional CAD models. For this reason, this research work has been developed by focusing the attention on a method for supporting the MBD implementation by the use of the quality function deployment approach. In order to analyze the efficacy of the proposed approach, it has been validated in the aerospace and defense domain where companies deal with complex products, characterized by a large amount of data exchange, and where collaborative design is a fundamental practice.