Organizational knowledge encapsulation and re-use in collaborative product development

Abstract

This paper discusses the theoretical aspects and applications of a novel methodology for exploiting a knowledge management editor tool to structure organizational knowledge and integrate it with product development activities. An organizational knowledge framework for capturing and representing manufacturing know-how has been developed using an ontological approach. The captured knowledge is converted into the industrystandard eXtensible mark-up language (XML) and then shared within a web-centric product data management (PDM) system to support a collaborative and distributed product development environment. The key business benefit of adopting such an approach arises from the closer integration between the key technical and business activities taking place during early design. In particular the effectiveness of decision making is increased.

Linking design and manufacturing domains via web-based and enterprise integration technologies

“…The figure illustrates an example of how instances related to a factory are populated and stored in the KBS. One of the most important aspects of creating knowledge statements is setting the value of the Probability Factor (Cheung et al, 2006). For instance, galvanising is a simple but delicate process and is mostly manually operated which can involve up to six steps to produce the desired coating.…”

“…There are two knowledge types: quantitative and qualitative. The knowledge types are further classified into Written and Benchmarking, Observation and Intuition, Employee Tacit and Experience and Best Practice as explained by Cheung et al (2006). Figure 8 represents the Manufacturing Know-how Knowledge-based system (KBS).…”

“…The manufacturing domain consists of an Aggregate Process Planning System (APPS) (Bramall et al, 2003) and manufacturing knowledge-based system (Cheung et al, 2006). The design domain consists of a STEP Modeller and the Design Knowledge-Based System (Aziz et al, 2005).…”

Advanced product development integration architecture: an out-of-box solution to support distributed production networks

“…For example, the internal functionality of a PLM system is life-cycle management, data storage and security. External integration requirements exist with regard to systems that either invoke the workflow system from the outside (embedded usage) or systems that are invoked by the workflow applications, for instance, the software systems such as the Knowledge-based system (Cheung et al, 2006) and the CAPABLE System Bramall et al, 2003). Since work coordination involves external networks and external applications, another issue that must be addressed is security on the public Internet (WWW).…”

Exploiting unified modelling language (UML) as a preliminary design tool for Common Logic-based ontologies in manufacturing

“…Ontologies to facilitate knowledge sharing are starting to be defined in the manufacturing sector (Cheung et al, 2006;Chungoora and Young, 2008). The use of Common Logic enables the utilization of predefined formal process semantics from the Process Specification language PSL (ISO 18629) thus providing a base set of concepts for a manufacturing ontology.…”