Data modelling with IDEF1x

The idea of integrating business, product development, and manufacturing activities has gained momentum in manufacturing industry. To remain competitive, companies must optimize the utilization of their resources. This integration of various functional areas, e.g. computer-aided design, computer-aided process planning, computer-aided production planning and control, computer-aided quality control, and computer-aided manufacturing requires a large volume of data to be stored by the users contributing to those areas. IDEF1x provides a formal framework for consistent modelling of the data necessary for this integration. This paper provides insights into the IDEF1x modelling technique. The paper concludes with a discussion of several relevant research issues.