Knowledge management for complex product development framework and implementation

Abstract

Complex product development process in global companies usually consists of several stages involving different software systems and numerous users from various departments and centers. Automation of this process assumes changes in company’s workflows, data models and software systems used. As a result, implementation of such changes in large companies faces a lot of difficulties because business process cannot be stopped to switch between old and new workflows, old and new software systems, etc. The paper represents an ongoing long-term project aimed at knowledge management for multi-level complex product development at Festo AG&Co KG. It is based on the central product ontology describing product classification, their properties and configuration & compatibility restrictions. The developed system complex significantly simplifies and speeds up the process of product development and maintenance.