Patent ID: 7496420

Claim:
A method for efficiently implementing an N-step manufacturing process for producing a mechanical part, comprising: creating a parametric master model that represents a part to be produced in an N-step manufacturing process; using the parametric master model to create process plans for the N-step manufacturing process, wherein the parametric master model is a mathematical model comprising parameters that can be varied to do at least one of the following: change the shape of the mechanical part, change the size of the mechanical part, add features to the mechanical part, and delete features from the mechanical part; and after manufacturing step i of the N-step manufacturing process: receiving information concerning values of parameters in the parametric master model as they exist after manufacturing step i of the N-step manufacturing process; making updates to the parametric master model based on the information that was received or updating the parametric master model based on planned parametric variations at particular steps in the manufacturing process sequence, wherein the parametric master model is updated without creating a new model; and updating the process plans corresponding to manufacturing step i+1 of the N-step manufacturing process based on the updated parametric master model; wherein the N-step manufacturing process involves the use of different manufacturing process types.