Figure 1 – Elysium’s QIF and Characteristic Support
In today’s fast-evolving landscape of Model-Based Definition (MBD) and Model-Based Enterprise (MBE), having robust, automated tools to ensure data consistency and traceability is more critical than ever. That’s where Elysium 3DxSUITE comes in. It offers a comprehensive suite of automated, model-based capabilities that seamlessly integrate trusted 3D MBD data throughout your entire organization, ensuring that the information is both human-readable and machine-readable. As the industry adapts to new standards and requirements, Elysium continues to evolve its capabilities, addressing the ever-changing needs of our customers.
Evolving with Industry Needs: MBC and QIF Support
The above figure (Figure 1) illustrates the ongoing evolution of 3DxSUITE, showcasing how we adapt to the industry’s growing demand for QIF (Quality Information Framework) and Model-Based Characteristics (MBC) support. In the example, you’ll see Model-Based Characteristics (MBC) highlighted in yellow, specifically <PC10> and <PC11>, which are assigned to engineering requirements to ensure traceability throughout the product lifecycle.
These Product Characteristic Tags (PC Tags) are accompanied by a UUID (Universally Unique ID) metadata structure, enabling true data traceability at the PMI (Product Manufacturing Information) annotation level. This traceability spans the entire enterprise, ensuring that characteristics (like dimensions and GD&T) are consistently tracked.
The Importance of MBC Tags: Ensuring Traceability from Start to Finish
Why is this so significant? Traditionally, assigning characteristics or “balloons” to engineering requirements has been a manual, time-consuming, and error-prone task carried out by quality or metrology teams. This process often leads to discrepancies across revisions or manufacturing facilities, making data traceability challenging. By assigning characteristics within your native CAD model from the very beginning, these attributes become persistent throughout the product lifecycle and across various manufacturing sites, ensuring seamless data traceability.
For our advanced customers who are already generating compliant, machine-readable MBD, assigning MBC tags directly within their MBD allows for continuous, accurate traceability back to the source of truth, their native MBD. This forward-thinking approach eliminates the need for manual assignment and enhances data consistency.
Transforming Data Exchange: QIF and the Bill of Characteristics (BoC)
Elysium 3DxSUITE can translate these characteristics and their associated UUIDs into neutral formats like QIF. By doing so, it enables the generation of a Bill of Characteristics (BoC), which allows for traceability back to the native MBD, now complete with injected characteristics and UUIDs. This translation is key to ensuring that all engineering requirements and their associated characteristics are easily accessible and traceable across your organization.
Visualizing Traceability: Data Package Studio and 3D PDF
To take traceability even further, Elysium’s Data Package Studio can attach the QIF to a visual data package, making it ready to exchange with downstream domains. This package can be seamlessly shared with stakeholders, enabling them to visualize the characteristics directly within a 3D PDF. Through the interactive Bill of Characteristics (BoC) displayed on the right-hand side (See Figure 1), users can easily navigate through the various presentation states and keep track of engineering requirements at the PMI annotation level.
A Complete Solution for Data Traceability in Your MBE
This visual data package is more than just a simple file—it’s a dynamic, interactive tool that ensures full traceability of characterized engineering requirements throughout your Model-Based Enterprise (MBE). By integrating these tools into your workflow, your organization can trace engineering requirements all the way down to the characteristic (PMI annotation) level of your MBD.
In conclusion, Elysium 3DxSUITE is designed to evolve alongside the needs of the industry, empowering organizations to fully embrace the benefits of Model-Based Definition and Model-Based Enterprise principles. By ensuring that characteristics are consistently tracked and accessible, our solution drives greater accuracy, efficiency, and collaboration across the entire product lifecycle.