Hayder Aziz

Open standard, open source and peer-to-peer tools and methods for collaborative product development

This paper reports on a collaborative product development and knowledge management platform for small to medium enterprises. It has been recognised that current product lifecycle management (PLM) implementations are document oriented, have a non-customisable data model and inter-enterprise integration difficulties. To overcome these, an ontological knowledge management methodology utilising the semantic web initiative data formats was added to a PLM and an open source alternative. Shortcomings of centralised architectures are highlighted and a solution using a de-centralised architecture proposed. This is implementable at low cost; the scalability increases in line with user numbers. Ontologies, rules and workflows are reusable and extendable.

Application of product data management technologies for enterprise integration

Product Data Management (PDM) systems and their offspring, Collaborative Product Development and Product Lifecycle Management technologies, aim to bring engineering enterprises together, allowing seamless interoperability between different departments and throughout the extended enterprises. However, there are a number of shortcomings in the current crop of commercially available systems, such as the lack of design knowledge sharing, links with Enterprise Resource Planning systems, knowledge management tools and a generic standard for PDM system implementation. This paper presents a proposed software solution to some of the above problems. In particular, the paper describes methodologies being developed that are aimed at overcoming the lack of analysable product information at the conceptual stage of product design and manufacturing evaluation, along with the integration of such a concept design tool within a distributed environment. A leading PDM system is used to manage all the information and knowledge that is made available to internet/intranet users in a controlled manner. The international standard for exchange of product data model (STEP) is implemented to enable the integration of the design environment with manufacturing and enterprise resource management systems. In addition, the paper also introduces three other recent/ongoing projects, being carried out at Cranfield University, in the application of PDM, knowledge management and STEP standard for integrated manufacturing businesses.

A Design Environment for Product Knowledge Management and Data Exchange

This paper reports on a distributed design environment under development for product knowledge management and information exchange. The system is able to use companies’ existing base of knowledge and to push the manufacturing knowledge higher up into the design chain to reduce the need for costly and time consuming reworks and engineering changes. The design environment uses an Open Source knowledge based system Protege and enables data/knowledge exchange through international standards for product data model exchange (ISO STEP) and the Resource Description Framework (RDF).

Ontological approach for organisational knowledge re-use in product developing environments

This paper discusses the theoretical aspects and applications of a novel methodology for exploiting a knowledge management editor tool to structure organisational knowledge. An organisational knowledge framework for capturing and representing “manufacturing know-how” has been developed using an ontological approach. The delivery mechanism for the application of the captured knowledge makes extensive use of web-based technologies. The captured knowledge is converted into an industry-standard format and then shared within a web-centric, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) environment. The integrated knowledge encapsulation and knowledge distribution and management approach is used to support collaborative and distributed product development global basis.

Case Study of Collaborative Knowledge Management in the Early Phases of Product Development

This paper reports on a case study of collaborative product development and knowledge management platforms for Small to Medium Enterprises. It has been recognised that current Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementations are document oriented, have a non-customisable data model and inter enterprise integration difficulties. To overcome these, an ontological knowledge management methodology using semantic web standards was added to a PLM and an open-source alternative. The client-server shortcomings have been overcome using a de-centralised architecture. This is implementable at low cost, the scale and accessibility of the system increases in line with user numbers.