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.