Bridging the gap between functions and physical components through a structured functional mapping chart

Functional modelling can be challenging to integrate with physical CAD-modelling, since the natures of these representations are quite different. This paper presents a methodology seeking to bridge these representations in a product platform context. The contribution of this work is a pragmatic way to improve the connections between Functional Requirements and CAD models. It does so by structuring functions, features and components and by linking these through tags in CAD-models. The methodology thereby associates the CAD models to the functional knowledge used when creating them. The result is the functional mapping chart, which is illustrated by an example from the automotive industry.