Automated engineering notebooks

The use of electronic notebooks is a generic and necessary step to automated design engineering. With the use of a workstation notebook, the flow of data and graphics can be unified into a firm point of documentation. The data obtained about individual design items (assemblies) can be further centralized into a resident workstation containing all known design knowledge. The author presents one implementation using off-the-shelf hardware and software that enables customers, manufacturers, designers, and users to participate in formation of dynamic engineering notebooks and perhaps have a say in what a good notebook should contain.<>