Custom CAD Plugin Architecture for Enforcing Industry-Specific Design Standards
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63282/3050-9416.IJAIBDCMS-V1I4P103Keywords:
CAD Plugin, Design Compliance, Industry Standards, PLM Integration, Rule Engine, CAD Automation, Product Lifecycle Management, Custom ArchitectureAbstract
A Computer Aided Design (CAD) system is a key feature in an extensive variety of industries such as automotive, aeronautical, construction, and electronics industries. Nevertheless, the application of the industry-specific design standards in CADs tends to be uneven and unproductive. This paper presents a plugin architecture that is independent of any underlying platform, offering extensibility suitable for the CAD tools industry. It enables the implementation of industry-specific constraints in design and facilitates integrated connections with Enterprise Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. In our proposed system, an enforcement mechanism in the form of a plugin is introduced, which verifies that designs adhere to standards in near real-time, leading to designs of high accuracy with fewer errors later on. Moreover, it facilitates easy interoperability with PLM enterprise systems, thereby enabling coordination and alignment of data at various stages of the product development process. The proposed architecture comprises a rule engine, a compliance validator, and an integration interface. The rule engine enables organizations to define the design rules that are specific to their respective domains, which are then assessed by the compliance validator during the design process. The PLM integration provides the validation of the design, version control and the synchronization of the workflow. We describe the lifecycle of plugin development, the platforms on which they can be supported, as well as the protocol facilitating communication between CAD and PLM environments. A robust case study of the aerospace industry assesses the performance, the degree of compliance, and integration overhead. Evaluation indicates a significant enhancement in design compliance rates (by 40 per cent), an improvement in reducing design-cycle time (by 25 per cent), and an advancement in usability scores compared to traditional manual validation practices. The system also facilitates automated updates to design rules, and it accommodates evolving standards. These features enable the plugin architecture to be scalable across various industries, accommodating different compliance requirements. The following paper summarizes some of the major architectural decisions, implementation methods, and evaluation processes. It concludes with future extensions that may include the use of machine learning to propose rules, dynamically selecting rules in cases of conflict, and a broader range of cross-platform integration
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