Applying Universal Linking of Engineering Objects in the Automotive Industry: Practical Aspects, Benefits, and Prototypes

The bi-directional communication of CAD programs with subsequent applications such as process planning remains a key challenge in design-for-the-lifecycle. While it seems sensible that individual applications use their own collection of feature types and thereby allow users to have their specific perspective of the product, it is still difficult to automatically close the gap between the variety of applications. Universal Linking of Engineering Objects (ULEO) targets this concern. It is general enough to facilitate informational integration of the applications along the process chain. This paper examines a number of scenarios for exploiting ULEO’s benefits in the field of automotive development and reports on the associated prototypical software implementations. Principle alternatives and technical aspects relevant for applying ULEO are discussed in some detail beforehand.