Patent Application
20140136152
The present disclosure relates generally to hardware development and relates more specifically to the design of hardware products using pre-existing components.
Hardware development engineers are typically encouraged to re-use pre-existing components (e.g., parts, sub-assemblies, and assemblies) when designing or modifying hardware products. However, technical and business information about these components is not often readily accessible to developers at the time of design. Instead, the information is typically distributed across multiple databases having different user interfaces.
Thus, collecting the information tends to be a manual process, leading most developers to forego review of the information until later in the design cycle. However, this delay can create a churn in the design cycle if the developer discovers information that discourages the use of a selected component in the new design.
Armed with the attributes, the developer will need to analyze each component listed in the BOM for business compliance. This may require the developer to obtain information about each component's availability, quality, or cost (or other metric). Since it is unlikely that all of the necessary information will be available from a single source, the developer will likely have to consult multiple databases, including parts information databases, supplier information databases, and availability/cost databases. If any of this information indicates that a given component listed in the BOM cannot feasibly be included in the hardware product, the developer may have to start all over (time permitting) by searching for alternative components with which to modify the design.
Analyzing a design of a hardware device includes obtaining a computer-aided design assembly depicting the design and automatically creating a bill of materials based on the computer-aided design assembly, wherein the bill of materials lists in a hierarchical manner a plurality of components making up the design.
In another embodiment, analyzing a design of a hardware device includes automatically creating a bill of materials based on a computer-aided design assembly depicting the design and automatically updating the bill of materials to include business and technical information retrieved from a database, wherein the automatically updating results in an updated bill of materials.
In another embodiment, a method for analyzing a design of a hardware device includes obtaining a computer-aided design assembly depicting the design, automatically creating a bill of materials based on the computer-aided design assembly, retrieving business and technical information from a database, wherein the business and technical information relates to the plurality of components, analyzing an inclusion of a given one of the plurality of components in the design, automatically confirming the inclusion of the given one of the plurality of components in the design, when the business and technical information indicates that the given one of the plurality of components is an optimal choice for inclusion in the design, automatically rejecting the inclusion of the given one of the plurality of components in the design, when the business and technical information indicates that the given one of the plurality of components is not an optimal choice for inclusion in the design, and automatically updating the bill of materials to indicate the automatically confirming or the automatically rejecting.
The teachings of the present disclosure can be readily understood by considering the following detailed description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the Figures.
In one embodiment, the present invention is a method and apparatus for analyzing hardware designs based on re-use of components. Embodiments of the invention help hardware developers validate selected re-used components (e.g., parts, sub-assemblies, or assemblies) early in the design process, based on current business and technical information. Further embodiments of the invention recommend alternative components when selected components cannot be validated. The design process is therefore streamlined by making business and technical information automatically available to developers at the time of design.
In particular, the hardware design assistant 200 receives computer aided design (CAD) assemblies representing hardware designs (including re-used pre-existing components) and automatically analyzes and validates the hardware designs based on business and technical information. To this end, the hardware design assistant 200 generally comprises a bill of materials (BOM) extractor 202 and a component use analyzer 204.
The BOM extractor 202 receives the CAD assemblies from developers and automatically creates a hierarchical or structured BOM in substantially real time (i.e., substantially immediately subject to any system delays). In one embodiment, the BOM is automatically created from within the CAD tool in a format that is familiar to mechanical engineers or designers. For instance, in one embodiment, the BOM is structured as a spreadsheet in which sub-assemblies can be collapsed or expanded, and quantities are listed for each component in each of the sub-assemblies.
As illustrated in
Referring back to
The component use analyzer 204 searches the databases 206 for each component listed in the BOM and analyzes any available information in substantially real time (i.e., substantially immediately, subject to any network delays). The component use analyzer 204 scores each component in the BOM according to this analysis, where the score indicates whether the component should be used in the design. For instance, the score may indicate that the particular component is “preferred” if the component is an optimal choice for the design based on business and technical considerations. Alternatively, the score may indicate that an “alternate” component should be used if the particular component is a sub-optimal choice. In one embodiment, the component use analyzer 204 recommends a specific alternate component. The component use analyzer 204 adds the score information to the BOM to create an updated BOM that the component use analyzer 204 then outputs for review (e.g., by the developer).
The method 500 begins in step 502. In step 504, the hardware design assistant 200 receives a request (e.g., from a hardware developer) to analyze a hardware design. In one embodiment, the design is either a new hardware design or a modification to an existing hardware design. The hardware design includes at least one re-used, pre-existing component. The request includes the CAD assembly of the hardware design.
In step 506, the BOM extractor 202 automatically (i.e., without manual human intervention) creates a hierarchical BOM based on the CAD assembly received in step 504. In one embodiment, creation of the BOM includes querying the product structure from the CAD tool and creating an assembly listing. The assembly listing includes the level (e.g., zero, one, two, etc.), item type (e.g., part, assembly, virtual item), quantity, and CAD attributes of each component in the hardware design. The components are then grouped (e.g., in spreadsheet form) by level to create a hierarchical listing of all components at all levels of the hardware design (e.g. , assemblies, sub-assemblies within the assemblies, and parts within the sub-assemblies). This grouping allows sub-assemblies to be expanded and collapsed for viewing. In further embodiments, the BOM distinguishes between real items and virtual items, as discussed above (e.g., virtual items may be identified by the developer in the CAD tool according to a particular convention). One embodiment of the BOM excludes inactive parts from the design structure.
In optional step 508 (illustrated in phantom), the component use analyzer 204 updates the BOM created by the BOM extractor 202. In particular, the component use analyzer 204 indicates whether one or more of the components listed in the BOM is considered an optimal component for use (or re-use) in the hardware design. For example, as discussed above, business and technical considerations may influence whether a given component is preferred or approved for use in the hardware design or whether an alternate component would be better. These business and technical considerations may be represented in one or more databases queried by the component use analyzer 204. In one embodiment, the component use analyzer 204 queries these databases for each component in the BOM. Any updates made by the component use analyzer 204 result in an updated BOM.
In step 510, the hardware design assistant 200 outputs the BOM or updated BOM for review by the hardware developer. In one embodiment, outputting the BOM or updated BOM includes storing the BOM or updated BOM on the developer's computing device. The method 500 then ends in step 512. However, if review of the BOM or updated BOM by the hardware developer results in a modification to the CAD assembly, the method 500 may be invoked again to analyze the modified CAD assembly. In this case, the same steps discussed above are repeated for the modified CAD assembly.
The hardware design assistant 200 thus uses the method 500 to gather and display data related to a proposed hardware design in a comprehensive and easy-to-read manner. Having this information readily available allows the hardware developer to make decisions regarding component re-use early in the design process, thereby accelerating the overall design process.
Alternatively, embodiments of the present invention (e.g., design analyzer module 605) can be represented by one or more software applications (or even a combination of software and hardware, e.g., using Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC)), where the software is loaded from a storage medium (e.g., I/O devices 606) and operated by the processor 602 in the memory 604 of the general purpose computing device 600. Thus, in one embodiment, the design analyzer module 605 for analyzing hardware designs based on component re-use described herein with reference to the preceding Figures can be stored on a tangible or non-transitory computer readable medium (e.g., RAM, magnetic or optical drive or diskette, and the like).
It should be noted that although not explicitly specified, one or more steps of the methods described herein may include a storing, displaying and/or outputting step as required for a particular application. In other words, any data, records, fields, and/or intermediate results discussed in the methods can be stored, displayed, and/or outputted to another device as required for a particular application. Furthermore, steps or blocks in the accompanying Figures that recite a determining operation or involve a decision, do not necessarily require that both branches of the determining operation be practiced. In other words, one of the branches of the determining operation can be deemed as an optional step.
Although various embodiments which incorporate the teachings of the present invention have been shown and described in detail herein, those skilled in the art can readily devise many other varied embodiments that still incorporate these teachings.
