A Novel Ontology Approach to Support Design for Reliability considering Environmental Effects

Environmental effects are not considered sufficiently in product design. Reliability problems caused by environmental effects are very prominent. This paper proposes a method to apply ontology approach in product design. During product reliability design and analysis, environmental effects knowledge reusing is achieved. First, the relationship of environmental effects and product reliability is analyzed. Then environmental effects ontology to describe environmental effects domain knowledge is designed. Related concepts of environmental effects are formally defined by using the ontology approach. This model can be applied to arrange environmental effects knowledge in different environments. Finally, rubber seals used in the subhumid acid rain environment are taken as an example to illustrate ontological model application on reliability design and analysis

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

A framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry

This paper presents a framework for developing engineering design ontologies within the aerospace industry. The aim of this approach is to strengthen the modularity and reuse of engineering design ontologies to support knowledge management initiatives within the aerospace industry. Successful development and effective utilisation of engineering ontologies strongly depends on the method/framework used to develop them. Ensuring modularity in ontology design is essential for engineering design activities due to the complexity of knowledge that is required to be brought together to support the product design decision-making process. The proposed approach adopts best practices from previous ontology development methods, but focuses on encouraging modular architectural ontology design. The framework is comprised of three phases namely: (1) Ontology design and development; (2) Ontology validation and (3) Implementation of ontology structure. A qualitative research methodology is employed which is composed of four phases. The first phase defines the capture of knowledge required for the framework development, followed by the ontology framework development, iterative refinement of engineering ontologies and ontology validation through case studies and experts’ opinion. The ontology-based framework is applied in the combustor and casing aerospace engineering domain. The modular ontologies developed as a result of applying the framework and are used in a case study to restructure and improve the accessibility of information on a product design information-sharing platform. Additionally, domain experts within the aerospace industry validated the strengths, benefits and limitations of the framework. Due to the modular nature of the developed ontologies, they were also employed to support other project initiatives within the case study company such as role-based computing (RBC), IT modernisation activity and knowledge management implementation across the sponsoring organisation. The major benefit of this approach is in the reduction of man-hours required for maintaining engineering design ontologies. Furthermore, this approach strengthens reuse of ontology knowledge and encourages modularity in the design and development of engineering ontologies