A large amount of design information from different areas has become common in most organizations, this knowledge is dispersed in different formats and locations, and shared among different members of the design team; this fact hinders a synergic knowledge management and prevents its proper use by design engineers. Therefore, it is imperative that companies worry about the organization and adequate availability of this knowledge, by creating collaborative environments. In this sense, it is possible to associate the Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) approach. Through the concepts of KBE, this study proposes an expert system based on an ontology model to assist the decision-making process, from the storage and adequate availability of knowledge at the right time. Based on a literature review and a diagnosis made in a company of the agricultural machinery sector, the present work presents a solution able to meet the needs of its users (i.e. designers), as well as to improve the quality of decisions taken at the detailed design phase of a New Product Development (NPD) process. For that, a case of hydraulic hose design is explored. The application of the present proposal aims to facilitate the access to information, significantly reduce the appearance of failures along the NPD, as well as allow acquired knowledge to be used in subsequent projects (e.g., lessons learned).

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Design for Reliability (DfR) is such an approach that can be referred as a set of activities that attempts to ensure the reliability of a product throughout all stages of its lifecycle. Recent research works on the subject, as well as common practices by industry, have revealed no cases of implementation of DfR in the initial stages of new product development, such as the definition of test plans based on product usage profiles. Therefore, the main goal of this research is to elaborate a method, based on an ontological model, that allows the determination of the most appropriate test plan, by considering usage characteristics of products. In order to develop this method, the Design Science Research methodological framework was used. Achieved results show that the proposed solution is an efficient and easy-to-use method, which potentially improves product reliability throughout the product lifecycle.