Information Representation of Production Requirements

Today there is a need to make process and production planning more cost-effective while not compromising the quality of the product. Manufacturing requirements are used to ensure producibility in early development phases and also as a source for continuous improvement of the manufacturing system. To make this possible it is essential to have correct, updated information available and to be able to trace the relations between requirements and their origin and subjects. To trace requirements' origin in resources or processes is today very difficult owing to system integration problems. This article discusses the relations that need to be represented and proposes the use of model-based methods to enable traceability of requirements. Because requirements are a collaborative effort a standard for information exchange is needed. The ISO10303 STEP application protocol AP233 System Engineering is proposed for this purpose.