Keywords: Object-Oriented Approach, Integrated Systems, System Architecture, Engineering Design Objects, Design Object Versions, Communication Channels, Communication Protocols, Communication Mediums.

The development of an integrated engineering system of broad scope is an, enormous task that can only be achieved, with an elaborate study, over a long period of time. Also, an important prerequisite for the development of such a system is a solid foundation of theory, principles and techniques. At present this foundation is weak. This paper presents an overview of part of the research that have been conducted to investigate some of the principles and techniques needed for developing integrated engineering systems, using object-oriented concept. The paper will, of course, address only small part of the overall research effort. Many details have been omitted for brevity.

During the last three decades there have been several attempts to develop integrated engineering systems using different architectures and various techniques. Recently, there has been a growing interest in developing integrated systems using object-oriented techniques. In this paper, a number of object-oriented principles and techniques are explored which are believed to be useful for developing integrated engineering systems. An overall object-oriented architecture of an integrated system and its essential elements is proposed, with (a) a central data base containing data common to all application areas; (b) a number of application programs performing application-specific operations; and (c) an application data base for each program, containing application-specific data. The central data base is accessed through a data base management system, while the application data bases are accessed through a simpler object manager. In addition, the paper will briefly address other issues that affect the development of integrated engineering systems.

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