Knowledge, Graphs & 3D CAD Systems - David Bigelow @ GraphConnect Chicago 2013

Global Design and Manufacturing Companies spend a lot of time looking in the rear-view mirror relative to their product design and configuration requirements in order to determine what NOT to do in the future. A lot of time and money is spent tracking information related to design validation, testing and warranty data. Understanding history is important, it often repeats and the bad decisions of the past needs to be avoided. But, what about the GOOD decisions that have been made, those are just as, if not more important to a design and configuration process! Where do those get stored?! How are they measured?! Most importantly, HOW ARE THEY ENFORCED?! Specifically, how do you help someone in a company make the RIGHT decisions, not just be fearful of repeating a BAD one?! This is a complex problem for any Design, Engineering or IT Department. That problem gets even more complex when you are required to incorporate a 3D CAD (Computer Aided Design) systems into the mix. If 3D parts and assemblies do not physically connect together properly, or are never supposed to work logically together based on the customer application, you will lose business. The solution is to rethink the approach to how a company not only captures knowledge about failures, but also start to capture successes. The ultimate goal is to help design and engineering staff make the right decisions first, to guide them through valid relations and requirements with ease so they are never distracted by bad decisions - or forced to address a potentially bad decision before it is made. This is where graph databases are poised to address a very complex problem in a simple and easy to understand way. There are two problems that come up from this: 1) how to document the relationships, rules, dependencies and logic in the graph structure, and 2) how to guide/navigate different role-specific-users through that process safely/accurately. This presentation will cover the real-world complexities of defining, validating, documenting and enforcing mechanical 3D CAD product configuration rules and structures. Demonstrations of how different roles within the company (e.g. configuration manager, engineer, sales, etc.) can interface with the same graph database using multiple interfaces (e.g. thick client, thin and web) to be interactively guided to a proper solution the first time.Read less