User oriented definition of product requirements within mechatronic engineering

This paper presents the application of a modeling technique from software engineering to mechatronic engineering is presented. The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is used to model users' needs and relate them to product requirements. It was shown that the UML could be used as modeling language in the early stages of a product development process within mechanical engineering. The way of modeling shown in this paper helps to define the core use and also to derive the requirements from it. The coherence of product modeling within the development process could not be shown yet, but the elaborated models give a very clear and structured view on product information in an early stage of the process. This is one important element for collaborative work within a geographically distributed development process. On the other hand the strength of structuring through UML restricts flexibility in product development. The effort to model is very time intensive and does not seem to have short term advantage. Future research is required for further modeling and the comparison between models of product development and software engineering.