Configuration management in evolutionary engineering design using versioning and integrity constraints

  • Authors:

  • T. W. Carnduff;J. S. Goonetillake

  • Affiliations:

  • School of Computing, University of Glamorgan, Pontypridd CF37 1DL, UK;Computing Division, UWIC Business School, Cardiff, UK

  • Venue:
  • Advances in Engineering Software
  • Year:
  • 2004

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Abstract

Artifacts in engineering design are structurally complex and may be represented in software as recursively composite objects. Due to the evolutionary nature of the design process each artifact and its components may evolve through several versions. The paper describes enhanced database system facilities that are used to group mutually consistent component versions together into useful configurations. The versioning system includes integrity management facilities that allow evolving design constraints to be captured flexibly at individual component/object level. In order to permit evolution, integrity constraints are represented within versionable objects, so-called constraint version objects (CVOs). Inter-dependency constraints can be modelled to express the consistency semantics necessary to combine component object versions into useful configurations. The evolution of these configurations can be captured in the database, as configurations are also represented as versioned objects. As a result of the hierarchical structure of composite artifact objects, subconfigurations may be combined to form higher-level configurations. To overcome the difficulties associated with combining object versions and subconfigurations into meaningful configurations, the computer system provides a graphical user interface which greatly eases the task of the designer. Selection of the mutually consistent object versions making up a configuration and the associated integrity validation is facilitated by the system, thus removing the need for the designer to become involved in any form of computer programming.