SHADE: Technology for Knowledge-Based
James G. McGuire Daniel R. Kuokka
Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratories
3251 Hanover Street, O/96-20 B/254F
Palo Alto, Ca. 94304-1191 USA
Jay C. Weber Jay M. Tenenbaum
Enterprise Integration Technologies
459 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, Ca. 94301 USA
Thomas R. Gruber Gregory R. Olsen
Stanford Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Stanford, Ca. 94305 USA
Effective information sharing and decision coordination are vital to collaborative product development and integrated manufacturing. However, typical special-purpose CAE systems tend to isolate information at tool boundaries, and typical integrated CAE systems tend to limit flexibility and process innovation. The SHADE (SHAred Dependency Engineering) project strikes a balance between these undesirable extremes by supporting reconfigurable exchange of engineering knowledge among special-purpose CAE systems. SHADE's approach has three main components: a shared knowledge representation (language and domain-specific vocabulary), protocols supporting information exchange for change notification and subscription, and facilitation services for content-directed routing and intelligent matching of information consumers and producers.
At the heart of effective concurrent engineering is communication. In product development, something is always changing-perhaps a design requirement an unanticipated simulation or test result, the availability of a component, or an improvement to the manufacturing process. Reacting quickly to such changes is essential for quality and productivity, and getting the information to the right place is an essential prerequisite. Designers need to assess the impact of their decisions on each other, and notify the affected parties in an appropriate way.