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| Engineering & Design  
KBE  Knext Based Solution

Tata Technologies has been engaged in the development of Next Generation KBE kernel grounds up and is targeted as an appropriate framework and solution for designing applications around Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) problems. We define KBE System as "a business practice that refers to the concept of harnessing functional intent, process model, manufacturing constraints and knowledge acquired over the years, and making it effortlessly available to all agencies, to help them do their jobs in a more effective and productive way".

To provide a solution for a typical design problem around the kernel with a general KBE theme, one would go about writing an application in the KBE language that forms the part of the kernel, after understanding the complete requirements. The language specifications have been designed keeping in view the challenges posed in the field of design like difficulties faced in modeling a process, a functional requirement, design rule, company best practices, connectivity to external programs and libraries, etc.

Application Architecture
The application is built on KBE kernel using a proprietary KBE language. There could be interfaces to other libraries and they are accessed through the integration layer. The Framework interfaces with various libraries; among them are geometry and user interface libraries. In a similar way, other libraries, including CAD vendor libraries and customer legacy libraries, can also be integrated. The application uses all the services provided by the framework and this includes the client/server model for getting services through services server, web servers (HTTP Protocol), ftp servers (FTP Protocol) and other customized protocols. Developing dedicated interfaces to appropriate technology with servers can enhance this protocol list and, therefore, objects can be accessed transparently.

Overview Of Functionalities
  • Functional & Process oriented Approach




  • Unified Language in Application development
  • Minimal coding
  • Platform Neutral Data Store
  • Workflow Service
  • Connectivity to PLM Systems
  • Conferencing (White Board and Messaging)
  • HTML Document Generator




  • Rich set of GUI components
  • The Desktop provides very rich and functional GUI programming environment.
  • Nested Definitions
  • Graph (Input and Output)
  • Powerful Geometry Kernel








  • CAD Like Interface




  • Knowledge Enrichment of Geometry
  • Automatic Drawing Generation


Salient Features
KNEXT is a KBE kernel (core software) having the following technological features
  • Objects evolve freely and have no kernel imposed structures and limits, which is useful in modelling Engineering applications focused on KBE and Process Modelling.
  • New objects can be created by programs on-the-fly and participate in the process, which is useful in modelling knowledge and process at run-time
  • Individual objects can be stored in platform neutral binary store or in the form of ASCII source. The session store is also platform neutral. This is very useful in collaborative working with many types of desktop computers in an engineering workgroup environment.
    • Object can be organized in memory with identifiable names, which simplifies data organization for the end-user and application programmers.
    • Objects have automatic heap memory allocation and reclamation mechanism. This feature eases the job of the application programmer.
    • The kernel is thread safe and uses mutexes (mutually exclusive memory based locks) to control execution, making it useful for applications where some activities can be done in parallel.
    • Kernel provides modular interface to GUI and Geometry. This allows plugging in other GUI and geometric kernels with relative ease.
    • Kernel uses uniform data structure for process, functional model, and the knowledge and instance objects. This makes it possible for the processes to understand the data flowing through it before making a crucial decision.
  • The kernel can be interfaced with other popular CAD/CAM/CAE/KBE packages. The work is currently in progress with CATIA V5 and ICAD software.
  • KNEXT product suites have various value added services: Workflow services, Data base services, remote call back services, conferencing services, etc.
  • The kernel can be used for effective "active" knowledge management tasks.

Service Areas
KNEXT
Venus ICAD Applications