Product Model for Lifecycle Support of Mechanical Parts

Appropriate maintenance support for products throughout their lifecycle is required to realize a sustainable circular society. For this purpose, we are developing a part agent system to support the lifecycle of individual parts. A part agent is a network agent provided for each part that monitors the state of the part, manages the related information on the part, and advises its user on its maintenance. The part agent performs a short-term lifecycle simulation of the corresponding part to estimate its prospective states and select preferable maintenance actions. The product information on which the lifecycle simulation is performed requires not only the shape, assembly, and kinematic information but also the information on the product’s behavior, including deterioration and deviation. In this paper, a product model that represents such information for the lifecycle support of products is proposed. Example applications of the model for the part agent include the lifecycle simulation of a simple manipulator and the generation of display information to support users disassembling a product.