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According to a document published by the Intelligent Manufacturing Systems Secretariat of the European Community, the following topics should be the focus of Manufacturing, Products and Service Engineering in 2010:

Before turning to the problems of modelling in mechatronics, which is our immediate domain of interest in this study, we need to set up a descriptive foundation by clarifying the essential notions, as well as to define new relevant terms, . to give names to some (new) notions, when appropriate. A name cannot change the appearance or the properties of the named entity, but nevertheless, it has a great impact on people’s attitude through associations that can be provoked — especially at the first contact with an entity. Improperly chosen or inadequate names can lead to misunderstandings and even misconceptions. As we shall see later on, names play an important role in communication, integration, standardization and other fields. We also use these names when we refer to the “building blocks of science” — notions, relations, facts, attributes and others. No “scientific house” (. theory) can ever be built without such building blocks. For these reasons, special care should be taken when new terms are introduced or existing terms renamed. Due to the attempt to avoid invention of totally new words, the names chosen for some notions may seem strange at first glance, especially if considered out of context.

Although many of the findings and considerations in this chapter could be generally valid for any kind of computer-based modelling, they are based mainly on observations of and experience with computer-based modelling in the field of and (MEM-modelling).

Software producers and software users understand quite differently the purpose of the software systems which support modelling. The former typically try to develop systems offering rich functionality, while the latter are concerned about properties of the models designed with these software systems, such as lifetime, integrability with other models, compatibility, .

The way to achieving The Perfect Modelling approach can be very long, even endless. But as the saying puts it, even the longest way starts with the first step. The Model Centred Approach described in the previous chapter is an attempt not only to make the first step on this way, but also to achieve some advancement towards a better — and simultaneously towards The Perfect — modelling approach.

Exactly as George Bernard Shaw puts it, the MCA does not only offer a solution, it raises also questions and creates some problems. One of the weak points is that the increasing number of components in a model leads to more effort on management and organization. Typically this can be solved through proper encapsulation, but maybe not always. On the other hand, the product data management (PDM) systems and the product lifecycle management (PLM) systems can do a great job here, but what they cannot do is the integration of the separate components — unless these model components possess enough intelligence to either integrate themselves alone, or support the PDM/PLM system in this activity.

Probably not every explanation in this book was absolutely clear. It is even possible that not everything is absolutely correct — at least from the viewpoint of your (the reader’s) specific background and qualification. Nevertheless, I would like to hope that you have liked at least some ideas, or that you at least do not disagree with everything.