A survey of engineering framework technology with applications to computer aided engineering

This paper surveys engineering framework technology and its potential benefits to collaborative engineering, with a particular focus on computer aided engineering (CAE). A framework is a software infrastructure that enables engineering tools to interoperate (work together). Representative research and development efforts are overviewed, and their contributions to the key technologies are identified. While industry examples to date have been mostly pilot projects, it appears this field is developing rapidly and moving towards mainstream usage in the near future. Hence, this survey recommends becoming more acquainted with framework technology, and it identifies guidelines established by the National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols Consortium (NIIIP) as a suggested starting point. An HTML version of this survey is available online that links to associated documents on the World Wide Web. Thus, as a secondary effect, this paper demonstrates how the Web can be used as a research tool.