Modeling framework for product lifecycle information

This paper presents a modeling framework for product lifecycle information. Although being widely used in enterprises' virtual product data management, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems are unable to manage the modeling and simulation aspects of virtual products. To reinforce the sharing and management of the product lifecycle information, especially the simulation data, a product's four-dimensional (4D) view model (PLIM) is established, which includes geometry view, task view, virtual prototype system view and lifecycle view. To provide efficient and effective simulation information, the prototype system view is then studied in detail. Finally, to validate the feasibility of the modeling framework, a prototype system is developed based on an application example, with the demonstration of 4D product lifecycle information model (PLIM).