Role Of Meta-Model In Engineering Data Warehouse

Engineering data are separately organized and their schemas are increasingly complex and variable. Engineering data management systems are needed to be able to manage the unified data and to be both customizable and extensible. The design of the systems is heavily dependent on the flexibility and self-description of the data model. The characteristics of engineering data and their management facts are analyzed. Then engineering data warehouse (EDW) architecture and multi-layer metamodels are presented. Also an approach to manage and use engineering data by a meta object is proposed. Finally, an application flight test EDW system (FTEDWS) is described and meta-objects to manage engineering data in the data warehouse are used. It shows that adopting a meta-modeling approach provides a support for interchangeability and a sufficiently flexible environment in which the system evolution and the reusability can be handled.