Task categorisation for identification of design automation opportunities

ABSTRACT

Engineering design automation has been an active field of research and application for more than five decades. Despite a multitude of available methods stemming from research fields such as Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) and Computational Design Synthesis (CDS) the application context in industry is mostly limited to routine tasks. Here we propose a means to foster the transition of academic methods to industrial practice through a comprehensible and comprehensive design automation task categorisation that allows practitioners to grasp the opportunities state-of-the-art design automation offers. The categorisation is based on a critical investigation of 77 papers stemming from KBE and CDS, respectively, and is detailed with respect to knowledge needed for complete formalisation of a task, i.e. inputs, outputs and goals, as well as available automation methods. A thorough discussion indicates the context of the work with current design practice and provides a consolidation of the research fields KBE and CDS including the derivation of technological requirements for design automation task definition by practitioners. Thus, this paper contributes not only by consolidating two research fields but also by presenting technological requirements for further streamlining the process of realising design automation applications in industry.

KEYWORDS:

• Design automation
• knowledge-based engineering
• computational design synthesis
• task categorisation
• task definition

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Martin Schwarz from Liebherr-Werk Nenzing GmbH for discussions and providing images.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the K-Project ‘Advanced Engineering Design Automation’ (AEDA) that is financed under the COMET (COMpetence centers for Excellent Technologies) funding scheme of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency.; Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft