Process automation and design optimization within industrial PLM systems

Parametric strategies for design automation and optimization are having a bigger impact on engineering design. Concurrently, many companies are moving toward increased use of product lifecycle management. However, current design automation and optimization solutions are not well suited for implementation within PLM, and therefore require significant workarounds to achieve integration. A solution has been developed that will enable automation and optimization within PLM. This solution leverages PLM workflow management, and parametric modeling strategies. The PLM workflow management module was customized with action handlers, adding the ability to automate engineering tasks such as updating models and performing analysis. An optimization action handler was also added that iterates design processes by duplicating the entire workflow job and initiating it with updated inputs in order to explore and improve the design. Because the execution of tasks can be assigned to different parties using standard workflow action handlers, engineering task execution can also be distributed to separate workstations.