Methodology for knowledge-based engineering template update

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of knowledge templates update in product development. A framework is developed to support template instances update process by providing a decision support system and an update strategy. An Issue-Based Information system is designed to allow the collaboration among various experts in order to solve template related problems. An ontology is used to represent and to reason on knowledge about templates, products and their relations. This allows the construction of an update sequence for the template's instances as it provides an efficient overview of relationships, even implicit ones. The proposed framework fills an actual gap concerning template updates, which slows down templates adoption for large scale industrial use. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.