An integrated system shell concept for computer aided design and planning

An integrated system shell called MetaDesigner, which deals with computer integrated product design and manufacturing planning, is developed by using various types of Al techniques. The object-oriented programming technique is applied to represent the information, including data and knowledge, and to implement various reasoning processes. A hierarchical structure is used to manage the processes of design ideation and manufacturing planning. Ultimately, it is the structure that the search process follows to find the instances of design and planning solutions. The system also provides interactive and system guided knowledge acquisition, classification, and retrieval to increase the intelligence of the hybrid expert systems developed in MetaDesigner.