Assembly is one of the most important and expensive phases in the manufacture of a product. Thus, generation of good assembly process plans is crucial to ensure good quality but low cost assemblies. One major process planning challenge relates to the interoperability issues between different software. There is no standard way to distribute all the design data from CAD systems to process planning and simulation applications.
Simulation has turned out to be an effective way to speed up and enhance the process planning activity. However, major challenges still exist for example with the fidelity and the ease of use of the current simulation tools. This paper uses a case from the aerospace industry as a basis for the research and aims to find the requirements for a toolset for the early process design of an aircraft final assembly. Three separate tools, GAIA, CAMeLEAN and 3DCreate, have been envisioned to form this toolset. The paper suggests an integration of these tools via a platform independent Knowledge Base, neutral XML formats and a generic Product-Process-System Ontology.