Interoperability in Automating Engineering Tasks: An Illustration with Pipe Routing Application

Smart manufacturing solutions require well-informed decisions at the engineering stage. Such decisions be-come possible when the users may have the right tools at the right time. As there may be different tool preferences among engineers in different problem domains or also organizations working within the same problem domain, the interactions between the people working on a common project can be hindered as they need to agree first on the toolset. Thus, supporting different tools and formats can be a valuable asset in engineering projects. This paper presents an approach for building an interoperable solution to be able to support different engineering tools. The approach is illustrated using a pipe routing application based on genetic algorithm (GA) and A* algorithm. The output can be handled by end users in web browser, Siemens NX and AVEVA tools. The solution can also be extended to include other tools. The evaluation of the proposed approach is conducted using a qualitative metric that considers the three dimensions of the system development methodology. Through this paper, the benefit is demonstrated that the utilization of semantic data in engineering design can enhance the interoperability of design software tools.