A New Software Development Tools with Virtual Reality for Computer Integrated Manufacturing Requirements Analysis

The design of the information system of manufacturing companies is a crucial endeavor in implementing a successful computer integrated manufacturing environment. The complexity of the manufacturing environment dictates the need for a systematic and structured approach to enable manufacturing system engineers to analyze and define their information requirement. Virtual reality based requirement analysis tool (VR-RA) has been developed for an existing novel methodology, in order to capture and represents the approach of experienced analyst studying the enterprise wide CIM information requirements. This paper introduces the methodology and describes the operational aspects of VR-RA, which is a user-friendly tool that can be used by people with little prior computer experience for the establishment of requirements. System analyst can use it for analyzing and modeling the CIM environment for both the static and dynamic requirements of a CIM implementation within small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).