Product/Component Information Field and Its Application to Concurrent Product Development

This paper presents a new modeling method for representing the spatial and configuration information involved for concurrent product development in design and its supporting processes. This method is called information field representation (IF-Rep). Based on this method, product/component models can be easily created — regardless of the complexity of the product/component — and are convenient to be used in various DFX processes to support design. This paper introduces applications of the IF-Rep and a key procedure in implementing IF-Rep modeling to support concurrent product development.