A knowledge system for integrated production waste elimination in support of organisational decision making

Abstract

This paper discusses a knowledge system for organisational decision making on waste elimination to achieve lean production. The system is named Production Waste Elimination Knowledge System (ProWEKS). An empirical study was undertaken to obtain production engineers and managers' empirical knowledge and expertise. A knowledge acquisition matrix has been designed for the knowledge elicitation activity. A waste elimination knowledge model is proposed which captures the inter-relationships between different knowledge components across four knowledge layers including know-what, know-how, know-why and know-with. A knowledge base has been developed based on the knowledge model through constructing a decision tree. The system is demonstrated and evaluated using a quality control decision case from the electronics industry. The main contribution of the paper is that it proposes a new knowledge architecture which comprehensively captures not only the know-what and know-how, but also the know-why and know-with of the waste elimination knowledge for lean production. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.