On Conceptual Modeling of Apparel Products
Yu Zhang · 2015
Apparel can be viewed as a product and it is a generic name for all types of clothes [3]. Like any other product, the apparel product needs the computer support in order to meet the ever-increased demands from the customer. An effective computer support requires an effective communication between the computer and human, and this requires a conceptual model of the underlying application, apparel in our case. Further, the conceptual model needs to be expressed in a way to facilitate the computer’s representation. A conceptual model captures basic concepts and their relations, which form a framework of knowledge about a domain of application. Another expectation of the conceptual model is that a conceptual model should be expressed in a way to facilitate the human and human communication, where the human refers to all the personnel involved in development of a product. In summary, there are three functional requirements (FRs) on the conceptual model. First (FR1) is that a conceptual model must capture all basic concepts and their relationships underlying the particular domain of concerned applications. Second (FR2) is that a conceptual model is a facilitator for the communication between the human and computer. Third (FR3) is that a conceptual model is a facilitator for the communication among all personnel who are involved in product development.