KBE and CAX
CAx crosses many disciplinary bounds and provides a sound basis for PLM. In a sense, CAx is a form of applied science that uses most of the disciplines of engineering and their associated fields. Materials science comes to mind.
KBE's support of CAx may have some similarities with its support of PLM but, in a sense, the differences are going to be larger.
The KBE flavor at the CAx level may assume a strong behavioral flavor. Given the underlying object oriented focus, there is a natural use of entities possessing complicated attributes and fulfilling non-trivial roles. One vendor's approach provides a means via workbenches to embed attributes and methods within sub-parts (object) or within a joining of sub-parts into a part.
As an aggregate, the individual actions, that are event driven, can be fairly involved. This fact identifies one major problem, namely control of what is essentially a non-deterministic mixture. This characteristic of the decision problem will get more attention as the KBE systems subsume more levels and encompasses a broader scope of PLM.
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