Knowledge management environment for collaborative design in product development

Knowledge management environments are being developed for product de-velopment activities to help companies reuse their knowledge. This trend has been identified in manufacturing companies, which operate product de-sign departments at various locations. Investigating how these companies can configure their knowledge management environments to fulfil engi-neers’ knowledge needs in deign activities opens up a research topic for us. A well configured knowledge management environment (KME) will require a clear understanding of what relevant roles need from it. The research fo-cuses on the structures and operations of knowledge sharing for product development. A case study of four manufacturing companies was conducted to understand their KMEs. The study reported in this report contributes to theory by providing an understanding of the structure of KMEs in companies. Researchers in the domain of knowledge management can develop a good understanding of how engineers interact with KMEs so that researchers can propose knowledge management systems or methods that make tangible improve-ments. This study also helps engineers map out the KMEs that they search to fulfil their knowledge queries. Chief engineers or managers in companies who are in charge of knowledge management can benefit from the under-standing of their own KMEs. The study also suggests future research direc-tions, such as identifying and proposing the indicators that can be used to measure the performance of knowledge re-use

Advanced Tools and Technologies for Collaborative Product Development and Knowledge Management

The shortcomings of the current state-of-the-art in distributed / collaborative product development of engineering products from concept to production are: A lack of an integrated interface for the full spectrum of functions needed by complex conceptual design for manufacture and assembly; and management and re-use of concept design knowledge within an integrated design environment. Recommendations are given on the integration of these disparate technologies for the benefit of collaborative work teams to enable them to use a seamlessly integrated interface to develop, review, analyse and reuse engineering and manufacturing knowledge and models within the enterprise and the supply chain. A proposed methodology and a functional description of such a system is presented. The system utilises the Protégé-2000 expert system on top of the Windchill data management / collaboration software. International Standard for the Exchange of Product model data – STEP is to be used for machining feature definition

Synchronous communication in PLM environments using annotated CAD models

The connection of resources, data, and knowledge through communication technology plays a vital role in current collaborative design methodologies and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems, as these elements act as channels for information and meaning. Despite significant advances in the area of PLM, most communication tools are used as separate services that are disconnected from existing development environments. Consequently, during a communication session, the specific elements being discussed are usually not linked to the context of the discussion, which may result in important information getting lost or becoming difficult to access. In this paper, we present a method to add synchronous communication functionality to a PLM system based on annotated information embedded in the CAD model. 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Distributed product development approaches and system for achieving optimal design.

The research in this dissertation attempts to provide theoretic approaches and design systems to support engineers who are located in different places and belong to different teams or companies to work collaboratively to perform product development.The second challenge is addressed by developing a collaborative design process modeling technique based on Petri-net. Petri-net is used to describe complex design processes and to construct different design process alternatives. These alternative Petri-net models are then analyzed to evaluate design process alternatives and to select the appropriate process.In this dissertation, three major challenges are identified in realization of a collaborative design paradigm: (i) development of design method that supports multidisciplinary xi design teams to collaboratively solve coupled design problems, (ii) development of process modeling techniques to support representation and improve complex collaborative design process, and (iii) implementation of a testbed system that demonstrates the feasibility of enhancing current design system to satisfy with the needs of organizing collaborative design process for collaborative decision making and associated design activities.New paradigms, along with accompanying approaches and software systems are necessary to support collaborative design work, in a distributed design environment, of multidisciplinary engineering teams who have different knowledge, experience, and skills. Current research generally focuses on the development of online collaborative tools, and software frameworks that integrate and coordinate these tools. However, a gap exists between the needs of a distributed collaborative design paradigm and current collaborative design tools. On one side, design methodologies facilitating engineering teams' decision making is not well developed. In a distributed collaborative design paradigm, each team holds its own perspective towards the product realization problem, and each team seeks design decisions that can maximize the design performance in its own discipline. Design methodologies that coordinate the separate design decisions are essential to achieve successful collaboration. On the other side, design of products is becoming more complex. Organizing a complex design process is a major obstacle in the application of a distributed collaborative design paradigm in practice. Therefore, the principal research goal in this dissertation is to develop a collaborative multidisciplinary decision making methodology and design process modeling technique that bridges the gap between a collaborative design paradigm and current collaborative design systems.To overcome the first challenge, decision templates are constructed to exchange design information among interacting disciplines. Three game protocols from game theory are utilized to categorize the collaboration in decision makings. Design formulations are used to capture the design freedom among coupled design activities.The third challenge, implementation of collaborative design testbed, is addressed by integration of existing Petri-net modeling tools into the design system. The testbed incorporates optimization software, collaborative design tools, and management software for product and process design to support group design activities.Two product realization examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the research and collaborative testbed. A simplified manipulator design example is used for explanation of collaborative decision making and design process organization. And a reverse engineering design example is introduced to verify the application of collaborative design paradigm with design support systems in practice

DETC2006-99149 AN AGENT-BASED APPROACH TO COLLABORATIVE PRODUCT DESIGN

ABSTRACT The growth of computer science and technology has brought new opportunities for multidisciplinary designers and engineers to collaborate with each other in a concurrent and coordinated manner. The development of computational agents with unified data structures and software protocols can contribute to the establishment of a new way of working in collaborative design, which is increasingly becoming an international practice. In this paper, we first propose a computational model of collaborative product design management aiming to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the cooperation and coordination among participating disciplines. Then, we present a new framework of collaborative design which adopts an agent-based approach and relocates designers, managers, systems, and supporting agents in a unified knowledge representation scheme for product design. An agent-based system is now being implemented and the design of a set of dinning table and chairs is chosen to demonstrate how the system can help designers in the management and coordination of the collaborative product design process. INTORDUCTION Increasing product complexity, explosive global competition, and rapidly changing customer's demands are forcing product manufacturers to improve the efficiency of design decision-making and shrink design cycle times. Advances in the computer science and technology have opened new opportunities for multidisciplinary designers and engineers to collaborative with each other more efficiently and effectively. Collaborative design can create added value in the design and production process by bringing the benefit of team work and cooperation in a concurrent and coordinated manner. Also, it help reduce the loss of efficiency resulted from potential conflicts and misunderstandings among team members. However, the difficulties arising from the requirements for design coordination mixed with differences among heterogeneous system architectures and information structures tend to undermine the effectiveness and the success of collaborative design among multidisciplinary designers. Recently, agent technology has been recognized by more and more researchers as a promising approach to analyzing, designing, and implementing industrial distributed systems. An intelligent agent consists of self-contained knowledge-based systems capable of perceiving, reasoning, adapting, learning, cooperating, and delegating in a dynamic environment to tackle specialist problems. The way in which intelligent software agents residing in a multi-agent system interact and cooperate with one another to achieve a common goal is similar to the way that human designers collaborate with each other to carry out a product design project. Thus, we believe that a collaborative product design environment implemented by taking an agentbased approach will be capable of assisting human designers or design teams effectively and efficiently in collaborative product design. In this paper, based on the analysis of the characteristics of a collaborative design process, we first propose a computational model of collaborative product design management to improve

A Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) Framework - Modeling for Conceptualization, Interoperability, and Modularity

Autonomy and intelligence have been built into many of today’s mechatronic products, taking advantage of low-cost sensors and advanced data analytics technologies. Design of product intelligence (enabled by analytics capabilities) is no longer a trivial or additional option for the product development. The objective of this research is aimed at addressing the challenges raised by the new data-driven design paradigm for smart products development, in which the product itself and the smartness require to be carefully co-constructed. A smart product can be seen as specific compositions and configurations of its physical components to form the body, its analytics models to implement the intelligence, evolving along its lifecycle stages. Based on this view, the contribution of this research is to expand the “Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)” concept traditionally for physical products to data-based products. As a result, a Smart Products Lifecycle Management (sPLM) framework is conceptualized based on a high-dimensional Smart Product Hypercube (sPH) representation and decomposition. First, the sPLM addresses the interoperability issues by developing a Smart Component data model to uniformly represent and compose physical component models created by engineers and analytics models created by data scientists. Second, the sPLM implements an NPD3 process model that incorporates formal data analytics process into the new product development (NPD) process model, in order to support the transdisciplinary information flows and team interactions between engineers and data scientists. Third, the sPLM addresses the issues related to product definition, modular design, product configuration, and lifecycle management of analytics models, by adapting the theoretical frameworks and methods for traditional product design and development. An sPLM proof-of-concept platform had been implemented for validation of the concepts and methodologies developed throughout the research work. The sPLM platform provides a shared data repository to manage the product-, process-, and configuration-related knowledge for smart products development. It also provides a collaborative environment to facilitate transdisciplinary collaboration between product engineers and data scientists

Implementation challenges of annotated 3D models in collaborative design environments

Recent studies in the area of collaborative design have proposed the use of 3D annotations as a tool to make design information explicitly available within the 3D model, so that different stakeholders can share information throughout the product lifecycle. Annotation practices defined by the latest digital definition standards have formalized the presentation of information and facilitated the implementation of annotation tools in CAD systems. In this paper, we review the latest studies in annotation methods and technologies and explore their expected benefits in the context of collaborative design. Next, we analyze the implementation challenges of different annotation approaches, focusing specifically on design intent annotations. An analysis of the literature suggests that the use of annotations has a positive effect on collaborative design communication as long as proper implementation practices, tools, and user interaction mechanisms are in placeCamba, J.; Contero, M.; Salvador Herranz, GM. (2014). Implementation challenges of annotated 3D models in collaborative design environments. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 8683:222-229. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-10831-5_332222298683Katzenbach, J.R., Smith, D.K.: The Discipline of Teams. Harvard Business Review 71(2), 111–120 (2005)Campion, M.A., Medsker, G.J., Higgs, A.C.: Relations between Work Group Characteristics and Effectiveness: Implications for Designing Effective Work Groups. Personnel Psychology 46, 823–850 (1993)Chudoba, K.M., Wynn, E., Lu, M., Watson-Manheim, M.B.: How Virtual Are We? Measuring Virtuality and Understanding its Impact in a Global Organization. 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Workshops for integral design of innovative roofs

Traditionally, the installation of accessories on roofs is the domain of roofers, having the traditional knowledge and experience of successful mounting and integrating existing roof products in both new and renovated roofs. In the current roofing situation, many new products are added to the building design and building process. As a result many problems occurred, resulting in poor quality, unsafe working conditions and high repair costs. Today there is a need from the roofers for a more active role not only in the constructing process, but also in the design process; Collaborative Engineering. The active role for the roofer is therefore related to the several aspects of the context in which the roofer has to participate. The result should lead to innovative roofs, roofs that are producing sustainable energy and are active in the interaction with the thermal environment. First experiments to find a format for supporting Design Collaboration, started in 2004 with workshops for design- teams including participants with the same educational background. In 2005, a first set up was done for design teams with participants with different educational backgrounds. These workshops are coupling a concrete task from practice and research focusing on the roofs where there is a lack of innovative designs, caused by a sub-optimal interaction between solutions and application in design practice. The process where actors from different disciplines work together to develop a (new) product is called Collaborative Engineering (CE). Workshops are used to offer a collaborative context to professionals and to determine in steps an adaptive method to analyse and improve the design collaboration related to knowledge exchange. The project, as part of the European 6th framework research EURACTIVE ROOFer, resulted in a series of workshops for architects and roofers to develop active roofs for integral sustainable comfort (HVAC)- system design, engineering and installation. The workshops gave first insights into the knowledge exchange and knowledge development between the participants. This paper describes the methodical backgrounds, the set-up of the EURACTIVE ROOFer-workshop and first results related to the knowledge management aspects

Workshops for integral design of innovative roofs

Traditionally, the installation of accessories on roofs is the domain of roofers, having the traditional knowledge and experience of successful mounting and integrating existing roof products in both new and renovated roofs. In the current roofing situation, many new products are added to the building design and building process. As a result many problems occurred, resulting in poor quality, unsafe working conditions and high repair costs. Today there is a need from the roofers for a more active role not only in the constructing process, but also in the design process; Collaborative Engineering. The active role for the roofer is therefore related to the several aspects of the context in which the roofer has to participate. The result should lead to innovative roofs, roofs that are producing sustainable energy and are active in the interaction with the thermal environment. First experiments to find a format for supporting Design Collaboration, started in 2004 with workshops for design- teams including participants with the same educational background. In 2005, a first set up was done for design teams with participants with different educational backgrounds. These workshops are coupling a concrete task from practice and research focusing on the roofs where there is a lack of innovative designs, caused by a sub-optimal interaction between solutions and application in design practice. The process where actors from different disciplines work together to develop a (new) product is called Collaborative Engineering (CE). Workshops are used to offer a collaborative context to professionals and to determine in steps an adaptive method to analyse and improve the design collaboration related to knowledge exchange. The project, as part of the European 6th framework research EURACTIVE ROOFer, resulted in a series of workshops for architects and roofers to develop active roofs for integral sustainable comfort (HVAC)- system design, engineering and installation. The workshops gave first insights into the knowledge exchange and knowledge development between the participants. This paper describes the methodical backgrounds, the set-up of the EURACTIVE ROOFer-workshop and first results related to the knowledge management aspects

Teammind: A Case Study of Collective Synergism, Team Development, and Decision-Making under Time Constraints

Advances in technology are challenging our concept of time and cognitive abilities to process and digest information in a dynamic environment. To develop a quality product that meets user\u27s needs and to perform within budget and program milestones, requires the expertise and shared understandings of an intact multidisciplinary team in design decision making. Collaboratively team members need to communicate on solutions for integrated product development, from their different disciplinary perspectives. To survive in today\u27s global competition, time-to-market gives research and development organizations the competitive edge in new product development, using emerging technologies. Therefore, there is a need for qualitative research on teams in the workplace making real decisions under time constraints. This qualitative case study examined the decision making strategies an intact multidisciplinary team used in the workplace to develop the user interface for an information system originating from a concept. The unique feature about this team is that the customer and contractor team members were co-located, involved in the daily decision making activities of new product screen design. The analysis indicated that during the decision making process communication provided the conduit for mutual adaptation and collective learning. Through cross-fertilization, team members had to integrate their fragmented bits of tacit and experiential knowledge to create a teammind or a collective mind to ensure that the product meets the needs of the customer and the contractor. In a complex environment of ambiguity and creativity, the team engaged in a collaborative relationship using dialogue to resolve conflicts, take risks, and negotiate based on requirements. They made decisions from their different disciplinary and organizational affiliation perspectives to produce the required design documentation. A significant implication of this study is that an organizational repertoire of a structured decision making process with feedback loops, provided a methodology to bring closure on design decisions. Although the time constraints and the size of the task were a challenge, through leadership based on expert power and collective learning, the team achieved their objectives. The recommendations include guidelines for program management and the need for research on collectivist cultures to identify how to train teams in new product development