Research On The Integration Technology Between CAD And PDM System

PDM(Product Data Management) is a technology based on the software, and is a kind of technology used for managing all the product information and the relevant procedure of product; CAD(Computer Aided Design) software is the origin of the product data in the PDM system. As important tools & systems to enhance efficiency of product development, CAD & PDM have been wildly employed in the enterprises of industry. In the view of the flow information in industry, CAD & PDM are located in upriver and downriver in product development process respectively, and they have lots of relations in business logically, the application integration between the two systems can shorten the development cycle of products and enhance productivity.CAD & PDM integration refers to using computer technology, combining CAD software with PDM system, and thus completing product design data storage and management. The paper by doing much research on the problems faced by manufacturing enterprises, according to the common under-using PDM technology, proposed the subject of CAD & PDM integration. Research content of this paper is arranged as follows:1. The paper discusses the framework of CAD and PDM system, briefly introduces the main functions of the two systems, analyses their adoptive technologies such as technical characteristics, development of history and trend, and also introduces some mainstream CAD software, analyses their main characteristics and development tools.2. The paper analyses the integration between CAD and PDM system, through analyzing and comparing their integration model and integration theory, proposing the feasible theory based on interface model, according to their integration theory, doing much research on BOM technology.3. Then according to integration requirements between CAD and PDM system, the paper puts forward the whole integration architecture, designs some functional modules between CAD and PDM system, and also gives the key technology.4. At last, making Pro/E that common under-using software as an example, deeply researched Pro/E API and revelant technologies, implemented the integration of structure information, attribute information and model information of products. And will provide reference for other CAD systems.The target of this paper is to realize the free dataflow between Pro/E & PDM, and so to realize the integration between the two systems, through analyzing the integration of CAD and PDM systems, and resolve the integration of the information in enterprise.