Embedding design descriptions using lattice structures: Technical requirements, user perspectives and implementation

Commercially available engineering design tools typically operate on native data formats and support individual designers creating design descriptions which are shared within product development teams and across supply networks. The use of such tools results in a multiplicity of design descriptions. For example, a CAD system may be used to create a design Bill-of-Materials (BoM), which is a form of design description, but different BoMs are needed for downstream processes such as manufacturing and servicing. Conventional approaches to the integration of design descriptions is through the use of data exchange technologies or a common underlying meta-model to support, ultimately, a single, shared digital design description. These approaches have architectural elegance but their real-world feasibility is limited by the heterogeneous environment in which they must be implemented. The research reported in this paper challenges this thinking and explores the feasibility of embedding design descriptions into each other. We report early results exploring the feasibility of using lattice theory, where lattices are in the form of partially ordered sets, to embed multiple design structures into a given design description.