Development of a process-based data driven engineering design knowledge re-use system

This paper will describe the development of the web enabled version of a process based engineering design knowledge reuse system. The rationale for using the design process as a central element of knowledge management will be discussed. The system structure will be described. Evaluation of the prototype showed the most valuable attributes of system. Mapping the design process helped to create the product data model. Workshops were used to validate the system. A small number of product parameters are required for developing the product concept in the early stages. The research showed the importance of multi view validation and iteration in system development. It also showed the importance of graphics in design support. Key issues include: the importance of process capture, data model validation, the use of graphics in the interface, system design and system assessment

A process-based approach to engineering design knowledge reuse

Manufacturing enterprises are under increasing pressure to produce products of higher quality at lower cost in shorter time frames if they are to remain competitive. Engineering design support methods can help companies to achieve these goals. One such approach is ,,design knowledge reuse. Industrial requirements have been identified as (i) the ability to rapidly create product variants; (ii) the ability to capture and re-use design knowledge, and; (iii) the capability to support the design effort across a distributed enterprise. The research aim is developed to assist the manufacturing enterprise in meeting the industrial requirements in the following way: a design solution to a new product requirement can be supported using an application package that is developed for a specific product domain. The application package consists of knowledge about previous products and projects, and procedures for using the knowledge to achieve a new solution. An initial investigation showed that design reuse in practice is lacking in specific areas: access to relevant and contextualised captured design knowledge; the relationship between design reuse and the product development process; integrated engineering and business objectives. Literature gaps were also identified. They include: (i) knowledge reuse for the whole product life cycle (particularly early design); (ii) integrated product and design process models; (iii) a 'how-to' element of the product design process. The aim of this research is to provide a method for reusing engineering design knowledge. The research method is 'interview case study', which supports a flexible approach and enables the research to develop according to the findings. The research was carried out with four companies, one of which took part in a detailed case study, providing case data to develop, populate and validate the proposed system. The outcome of the research is a proposal for a process based engineering design reuse method. The method consists, of a combination of product, process and task knowledge to support the design process. Product knowledge is represented using a product ontology. Process knowledge is represented using the Design Roadmap method. Task knowledge is represented using a template developed to record the critical aspects of the task, including 'how-to' knowledge. Case studies are used to validate the proposed framework and the developed prototype system. The proposed design knowledge reuse framework is applicable to a range of industries in which mature, complex products are developed.Ph

A process-based approach to engineering design knowledge reuse

Manufacturing enterprises are under increasing pressure to produce products of higher quality at lower cost in shorter time frames if they are to remain competitive. Engineering design support methods can help companies to achieve these goals. One such approach is design knowledge reuse. Industrial requirements have been identified as (i) the ability to rapidly create product variants; (ii) the ability to capture and re-use design knowledge, and; (iii) the capability to support the design effort across a distributed enterprise. The research aim is developed to assist the manufacturing enterprise in meeting the industrial requirements in the following way: a design solution to a new product requirement can be supported using an application package that is developed for a specific product domain. The application package consists of knowledge about previous products and projects, and procedures for using the knowledge to achieve a new solution. An initial investigation showed that design reuse in practice is lacking in specific areas: access to relevant and contextualised captured design knowledge; the relationship between design reuse and the product development process; integrated engineering and business objectives. Literature gaps were also identified. They include: (i) knowledge reuse for the whole product life cycle (particularly early design); (ii) integrated product and design process models; (iii) a ‘how-to’ element of the product design process. The aim of this research is to provide a method for reusing engineering design knowledge. The research method is ‘interview case study’, which supports a flexible approach and enables the research to develop according to the findings. The research was carried out with four companies, one of which took part in a detailed case study, providing case data to develop, populate and validate the proposed system. The outcome of the research is a proposal for a process based engineering design reuse method. The method consists of a combination of product, process and task knowledge to support the design process. Product knowledge is represented using a product ontology. Process knowledge is represented using the Design Roadmap method. Task knowledge is represented using a template developed to record the critical aspects of the task, including ‘how-to’ knowledge. Case studies are used to validate the proposed framework and the developed prototype system. The proposed design knowledge reuse framework is applicable to a range of industries in which mature, complex products are developed.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Analysis of Factors Influencing Knowledge Transfer between the Product and Production System Development as well as Production

The product development process is characterized by accelerating development cycles and increasing customer demands for a wide range of product variants. In addition, it is very knowledge-intensive and characterized by the reuse of knowledge in product generation engineering. Developing new products based on existing references, e.g. knowledge about design parameters or manufacturing technologies, requires effective and efficient transfer of knowledge. In a knowledge transfer, people of different domains, here product and production system development as well as production, make parts of their mental model tangible for others. When doing so, problems can occur that can cause information loss. Knowledge transfer has been reviewed in literature by multiple disciplines and defined differently amongst various understandings of its design. In this work, knowledge transfer includes the identification, transmission, and application of knowledge and thus addresses the problem of distributing knowledge within a company. To optimize knowledge transfer within the product engineering process to reduce information loss and knowledge deficits, factors that impact knowledge transfer must be considered. Therefore, this contribution examines factors that either influence the knowledge transfer positively or negatively, especially between product and production system development as well as production. In addition to a literature-based identification of influencing factors, a qualitative study interviewing experts in those fields enhances the findings. Furthermore, the collection of factors was assigned to four clusters: people, organization, technology, and knowledge and transfer. By linking the factors of each cluster, a model was created to be able to investigate the impact of changing factors within and between clusters providing a basis for closing knowledge deficits to enable effective and efficient knowledge transfer

Building a Systematic Legacy System Modernization Approach

A systematic legacy system modernizing approach represents a new approach for modernizing legacy systems. Systematic legacy system modernization has software reuse as an integral part of modernization. We have developed a modernization approach which uses software architecture reconstruction to find reusable components within the legacy system. The practice of software development and modernization continues to shift towards the reuse of components from legacy systems to handle the complexities of software development. Modernization of a legacy system requires reuse of software artefacts from legacy system to conserve the business rules and improve the system’s quality attributes. Software reuse is an integral part of our systematic legacy modernization approach. Software should be considered as an asset and reuse of these assets is essential to increase the return on the development costs. Software reuse ranges from reuse of ideas to algorithms to any documents that are created during the software development life cycle. Software reuse has many potential benefits which include increased software quality, and decreased software development cost and time. Demands for lower software production and maintenance costs, faster delivery of systems and increased quality can only be met by widespread and systematic software reuse. In spite of all these benefits software reuse adoption is not widespread in the software development communities. Software reuse cannot possibly become an engineering discipline so long as issues and concerns have not been clearly understood and dealt with. We have conducted two surveys to understand the issues and concerns of software reuse in the Conventional Software Engineering (CSE) Community and the Software Product Line (SPL) Community where reuse is an integral part of the product development. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of our surveys identified the critical factors which affect and inhibit software engineers and developers adopting software reuse. Software reuse has been talked about in generic terms in software product lines. Though software reuse is a core concept in SPL it has however failed to become a standardized practice. The survey conducted on the SPL Community investigates how software reuse is adopted in SPL so as to provide the necessary degree of support for engineering software product line applications and to identify some of the issues and concerns in software reuse. The identified issues and concerns have helped us to understand the difference between software reuse in the CSE and SPL Communities. It has also given us an indication of how both communities can learn good software reuse practices from each other in order to develop a common software reuse process. Based on the outcome of our surveys we have developed a systematic software reuse process, called the Knowledge Based Software Reuse (KBSR) Process, which incorporates a Repository of reusable software assets to build a systematic legacy system modernization approach. Being able to reuse software artefacts, be it software requirement specification, design, or code, would greatly enhance software productivity and reliability. All of these software artefacts can go in the Knowledge Based Software Reuse Repository and be candidates for reuse

Comparison of knowledge representation in PDM and by semantic networks

\u27Nowadays, computer-aided tools have enabled the creation of electronic design documents on an unprecedented scale, while determining and finding what can be reused for a new design is like searching for a \u27needle in a haystack\u27. (…) The availability of such extensive knowledge resources is creating new challenges as well as opportunities for research on how to retrieve and reuse the knowl-edge from existing designs.\u27 [1] If the requested knowledge is implicit (which means that it is only in the minds of the employees of a company) the retrieval and reuse of knowledge is even more com-plicated. By representing the (engineering) data backbone of a company, PDM systems are the software implementation which should support the designer to retrieve information about existing and successful design projects. This paper shows that the known data classification approaches of common PDM systems are not applicable to represent implicit (tacit) knowledge. Furthermore a new approach to knowledge representation is introduced by using Semantic Networks. The feasibility of the presented work is shown by a use-case scenario in which the conventional PDM system supported product development process is compared with the proposed way by using the soft-ware \u27The Semaril\u27 — a software tool developed at the Institute of Engineering Design/CAD based on Semantic Networks [2]

The strategic value of targeted knowledge management - case study of an Australian refrigeration company

 This thesis is a study of design and implementation of an engineering knowledge management system to facilitate knowledge capture, sharing and reuse to both ensure business continuity and resolve a make-span problem in an Australian refrigeration company. The company had encountered problems with a number of engineering staff in the small product development team leaving the company and taking their expertise with them. This situation has impacted the business continuity of the company, because the knowledge and expertise used in the refrigerated display cabinet development process is a combination of explicit and tacit knowledge as the engineers conduct the product development process intuitively. Records of previous design and testing processes were either non-existent or stored in ways that were not accessible. The other business problem in the company resulted from product development taking too long, in effect from 6 weeks up to the worst case of one year. The company needed research solutions to both of these problems to strategically maintain the competitiveness of the company business. This research applied a single case study research method with a problem-solving paradigm, Design Science methodology, to develop and then test solutions. Design Science as a research methodology has two components, first design development and second, design evaluation. The researcher developed an engineering knowledge based system as an artefact to solve the problem of enabling company business continuity. Using ontology as a structural base, the KBS contains both knowledge elements captured from the engineers during the data collection process and existing knowledge artefacts in the company. The research used a set of multilayered research techniques, including semi-formal and formal interviews, serendipitous interviews, group meetings, observation and shadowing, to capture and then structure both the tacit and explicit knowledge. The resultant ontology was used to build the KBS to store both tacit and explicit knowledge and answer the engineers’ questions about their existing and previous product development processes. The KBS developed in this research is a knowledge repository to maintain records of the products design and testing processes in a searchable form. Use and then an evaluation of the system by the engineers and the executive staff of the company confirmed that the intention of the system to address the business continuity problem by knowledge capture, classification and storage was achieved and met the company’s business needs. This research also applied Heuristic Process Mining to the knowledge stored in the KBS to address the second problem identified initially by the company, that of lengthy make span in new product design and development. HPM is a technique using mathematical models to find relationships between tasks in the process. HMP measures dependency and frequency values between tasks and tasks with low D/F value can be eliminated from the process. This then can lead to the shorter product testing process. The research showed that the application of HPM to the stored process knowledge in the KMS was able to significantly reduce the product design and testing process in the company

Cost Estimation in Initial Stages of Product Development – An Ontological Approach

Cost estimation in the early stages of the product development process is fraught with uncertainties. The conceptual design is characterized by the absence of data, the most critical being costs. Decisions based on incorrect assumptions impact a project significantly and can increase unexpected costs in the future. As there are no structured means of obtaining costs in the conceptual phase, the reuse of data from past projects is an alternative discussed in the literature. Knowledge management approaches suggest a search for data in successful earlier projects. The use of ontologies has been regarded as an approach to capturing either knowledge stored in database or tacit knowledge. The proposed solution, in the form of an expert system built upon an ontological model, seeks to estimate costs based on costs in previous projects as well as expert tacit knowledge. The model is demonstrated by queries with needed functions and requirements. The ontological model searches the necessary information and generates a cost estimation. The present research project follows the methodological framework Design Science Research, presenting an overhead crane as a case study. The proposed approach has great potential in other industrial contexts as well

Adopting CBD with reuse in the KEZB e-commerce website development by using wordpress CMS application

The development of e-Commerce website is complex and time consuming. It required specific amount of technical knowledge and very costly in order to successfully develop a complete beautiful e-Commerce website. However, these days, there is a new Software Engineering (SE) strategy introduced replacing the traditional way of developing website by automating the development process. This strategy promoted the use of reusable component to develop a complete website named Component-Based Development (CBD) design strategy. Unfortunately, still there are many organizations or business entities that keeps on invest in high cost website development. An adoption of CBD approach can actually reduce the development time and cost. The software project of KEZB e-Commerce Website development is used as case study case in this report. This project focuses on adopting a CBD design strategy by using WordPress Content Management System (CMS) to develop the e-Commerce website. On top of that, other SE practices such as standard documentation, modelling technique, and development model is used throughout the development lifecycle. The selection of these practices is according to characteristics of project and organization’s nature. There are two (2) processes introduced in CBD design strategy which are design for reuse and design with reuse. In this project, the e-Commerce website will be designed and developed by adopting the design with reuse process by using selected design tools. The largely used design tool that follows the key concept of reuse is CMS. CMS is a developing tools or computer application that enables the creation and alteration of the digital content easily without the need of technical knowledge. The standard for documentation used in this project is the DoD Standard. At the end of this project Software Requirement Specification (SRS) and Software Design Document (SDD) are produced. Waterfall model is selected as a development methodology which comprises of Requirement, Analysis, Design, Implementation, Testing and Deployment phase. However, Testing phase is not conducted in this project due to time constraint. Other than that, UML modelling technique is used as a notation in developing the analysis and design model. Overall, the CBD design strategy with reuse process can rapid the development process and ensure a high quality software product; CMS application is a cost effective and helpful development tools; and software documentation and methodology can be used to manage and keep track software project effectively

Reuse of Engineering Knowledge: Perspectives on Experience-Based Codified Knowledge in Incremental Product Development

Product development is a knowledge-intensive activity and as products become more complex and competition intensifies, the amount of knowledge increases. A prerequisite for engineers who apply current best practices and continuously improve their working methodologies is to efficiently reuse existing knowledge. However, current trends during which individuals switch positions at an increasing speed and when the information is more dynamic, fleeting and more rapidly gained than ever before, calls for enhanced preparedness to meet these challenges. Numerous initiatives have been made, yet repeated design-related product issues are a recurring phenomenon which ultimately results in organizations either succeeding or disappearing from the market place. Guided by three research questions faced by the engineers, this thesis sets to (1) identify and analyze the characteristics of codified knowledge that support knowledge reuse; (2) Develop and enhance knowledge reuse support based on the characteristics identified in order to increase such knowledge reuse within product development organizations; and finally, the thesis aims to (3) evaluate the implementation of this support.In order to answer the first research question, a study exploring barriers to the reuse of codified knowledge highlighted eighteen potential barriers, eight of them associated with the individual at the engineering level. The discoveries within literature formed the basis for analyses and identification of ten characteristics regarding the quality of knowledge for reuse.As a continuation of the identified characteristics resulting from the first research question and to answer the second research question, a framework to efficiently support knowledge reuse has evolved. This framework is referred to as Engineering Checksheets and sets out to divide engineering knowledge into actionable pieces which not only give the engineers the answer to what to do, but also how and why a decision or action should be carried out, which have been identified as important components to foster knowledge reuse and to further enable continuous improvements.To answer the third research question, Engineering Checksheets have been implemented in industry and have been actively applied during several years in a variety of settings within a couple of organizations. An evaluation of the support implemented testifies to several valuable lessons learned, including dividing knowledge into actionable pieces which makes it both easier to apply the knowledge, as well as being notified when new knowledge has been gained but not yet captured, which is also helpful to the process of continuously capturing knowledge. The findings bear witness of the fact that efficient Knowledge Management is not so much about the IT system as it is about the Knowledge Management process and individual motivation. This thesis provides a pathway for organizations and engineers to extend their narrow focus of capturing knowledge by embracing and highlighting the perspective of knowledge reuse. By facilitating a habit and mindset of continuously capturing and reusing knowledge, product development organizations can greatly increase their effectiveness and quality of output