Abstract
This thesis adopts the new STEP standard and accompanying methodologies to solve an important problem facing manufacturing industries: integrating CAD tools and product data information. Using the STEP methodology, a first attempt to develop a multi-Application Protocol application was made, which led to the development of a generic electronic product model that became the conceptual schema of an object oriented database. This model has been actually implemented and tested. The methodology adopted led to the proposal of a new extended Application Protocol designed to meet information requirements of the manufacture of electronic products. The generic model for electronic products is proposed and developed employing STEP resources and methodologies. Using STEP's information modelling language, EXPRESS, extra data constructs were developed to satisfy the information requirements of the model. Novel aspects of the model include: the combination of all aspects of the product, both electronic and mechanical; and the extension of the model over six different STEP Application Protocols. The work involved the proposal of a new extended Application Protocol to meet information requirements of electronic products, and the development of a detailed model of a generic Printed Circuit Board (PCB). A unique feature of this PCB model is its compatibility with any future PCB CAD tool claiming compliance to STEP. The models conformance to STEP was ensured via extensive validation and conformance procedures. Problems related to the implementation of this new standard in the electronics industry were identified and possible solutions discussed. This work includes an industrial case study where an actual activity model of an engineering organisation was developed; the proposed generic model implemented and tested; and the actual data instances of a product generated and stored in a universal object-oriented product database. The implementation of the generic model provided the engineering organisation with an integrated platform for product data, which facilitated the implementation of concurrent engineering practices.