Engineering design knowledge management in de-centralised virtual enterprises

The problems of collaborative engineering design and knowledge management at the conceptual stage in a network of dissimilar enterprises was investigated. This issue in engineering design is a result of the supply chain and virtual enterprise (VE) oriented industry that demands faster time to market and accurate cost/manufacturing analysis from conception. The solution consisted of a de-centralised super-peer net architecture to establish and maintain communications between enterprises in a VE. In the solution outlined below, the enterprises are able to share knowledge in a common format and nomenclature via the building-block shareable super-ontology that can be tailored on a project by project basis, whilst maintaining the common nomenclature of the ‘super-ontology’ eliminating knowledge interpretation issues. The two-tier architecture layout of the solution glues together the peer-peer and super-ontologies to form a coherent system for both internal and virtual enterprise knowledge management and product development.

A framework to integrate design knowledge reuse and requirements management in engineering design

This paper presents a framework to integrate requirements management and design knowledge reuse. The research approach begins with a literature review in design reuse and requirements management to identify appropriate methods within each domain. A framework is proposed based on the identified requirements. The framework is then demonstrated using a case study example: vacuum pump design. Requirements are presented as a component of the integrated design knowledge framework. The proposed framework enables the application of requirements management as a dynamic process, including capture, analysis and recording of requirements. It takes account of the evolving requirements and the dynamic nature of the interaction between requirements and product structure through the various stages of product development.