Mansur Darlington

Investigating ontology development for engineering design support

Ontologies are now in widespread use as a means of formalizing domain knowledge in a way that makes it accessible, shareable and reusable. Nevertheless, to many, the nature and use of ontologies are unfamiliar. This paper takes a practical approach - through the use of example - to clarifying what ontologies are and how they might be useful in an important and representative phase of the engineering design process, that of design requirement development and capture. The paper consists of two parts. In the first part ontologies and their use are discussed, and a methodology for developing ontologies is explored. In the second part, three very different types of ontology are developed in accordance with the methodology. Each of the ontologies captures a different conceptual facet of the engineering design domain, described at a quite different level of abstraction than the others. The process of developing ontologies is illustrated in a practical way and the application of these ontologies for supporting the capture of the engineering design requirement is described as a means of demonstrating the general potential of ontologies.

A computational framework for retrieval of document fragments based on decomposition schemes in engineering information management

Abstract Retrieval of document fragments has a great potential for application in engineering information management. Frequently engineers have neither the time nor inclination to sift through long documents for small pieces of useful information. Yet it is frequently in the form of one or more long documents that the information that they seek is presented. Supporting the delivery of the right information, in the right format and in the right quantity motivates the search for better ways of handling document sub-components or fragments. Document fragment retrieval can be facilitated using modern computational technologies. This paper proposes a novel framework for information access utilising state-of-the-art computational technologies and introducing the use of multiple document structure views through decomposition schemes. The framework integrates document structure study, mark-up technologies, automated fragment extraction, faceted classification and a document navigation mechanism to achieve the target of retrieval of specific document fragments using precise, complex queries. These disparate elements have been brought together in an exploratory Engineering Document Content Management System (EDCMS). Using this, investigations using representative engineering documents have shown that information users can access and retrieve document content – at fragment level rather than at document level – both through data in a document and document metadata, through different perspectives and at different granularities, and simultaneously across multiple documents as well as within a single document.

Codification vs personalisation: A study of the information evaluation practice between aerospace and construction industries

In the emerging digital economy, the management of information in aerospace and construction organisations is facing a particular challenge due to the ever-increasing volume of information and the extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This paper addresses the problems of information overload and the value of information in both industries by providing some cross-disciplinary insights. In particular it identifies major issues and challenges in the current information evaluation practice in these two industries. Interviews were conducted to get a spectrum of industrial perspectives (director/strategic, project management and ICT/document management) on these issues in particular to information storage and retrieval strategies and the contrasting approaches to knowledge and information management of personalisation and codification. Industry feedback was collected by a follow-up workshop to strengthen the findings of the research. An information-handling agenda is outlined for the development of a future Information Evaluation Methodology (IEM) which could facilitate the practice of the codification of high-value information in order to support through-life knowledge and information management (K&IM) practice.

Defining a framework for the evaluation of information

In any enterprise, decisions need be made during the life cycle of information about its management. This requires information evaluation to take place; a little-understood process. For evaluation support to be both effective and resource efficient, some sort of automatic or semi-automatic evaluation method would be invaluable. Such a method would require an understanding of the diversity of the contexts in which evaluation takes place so that evaluation support can have the necessary context-sensitivity. This paper identifies the dimensions influencing the information evaluation process and defines the elements that characterise them, thus providing the foundations for a context-sensitive evaluation framework.

An approach for document fragment retrieval and its formatting issue in engineering information management

This paper discusses engineering document fragment mark-up supported by the use of the eXstensible Stylesheet Language – Formatting Objects (XLS-FO). XLS-FO can be used to convert the native format repre-sentation of such documents as Word, Excel and PDF into XML. Once in XML, documents fragments can be retrieved at will in response to a search query. In the paper the process of a document fragment retrieval – based on the authors’ decomposition scheme approach – has been modelled and the issue of converting documents into XML addressed. Additionally, the use of document templates is discussed as a means of ensuring that the transformed XML documents are compliant with the decomposition schemes. Automating the reformatting of documents into XML and the use of templates helps make implementation of a document-fragment approach to retrieval more resource efficient, so making its adoption in industry more practicable.

Knowledge and Reasoning: Issues Raised in Automating the Conceptual Design of Fluid Power Systems

Abstract Much progress has been made in the area of computer-aided designer support, but little has been made in that of design automation. Where progress has been made, it has been largely in the analytical aspects of the task (for example, simulation and stress analysis)—tasks for which computers are more suited than humans. Less tractable is automation of the early, conceptual, phase of design, heavily reliant as it is on the expert knowledge of the design practitioner. Emulating this computationally is the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and requires a detailed understanding of the nature of the design process (Darlington et al, 1998). This paper discusses some of the issues raised during an investigation in to the automation of the configuration phase of fluid power system design, and identifies some of the hurdles to be cleared before automation, supported by AI, becomes a reality. Two models, developed by the authors, are chosen to illustrate the way in which very different approaches can be taken to automating the same task with an emphasis on the knowledge that is used by designers, which must be acquired and used in automation.

Cognitive Theory as a Guide to Automating the Configuration Design Process

The automation of the design process is extremely difficult; design tasks are complex and ill-defined, and generally performed by experts who have many years’ experience. Design is a typically human endeavour, and as humans offer the only example of flexible and successful design systems, any attempt to automate the process should be informed by the theories and studies of human cognition. In this paper, the authors put forward this argument in greater depth, before presenting a general cognitive framework for one particular design task, that of configuration design, the task of selecting and connecting a set of domain components to satisfy a given set of requirements. This framework has permitted the implementation of an automated configuration design tool for the domain of fluid power systems.

Organising and contextualising Engineering Business Information through the application of faceted classification

This paper discusses the construction of an organisational scheme for application within a bespoke Information Management system, intended to support the retrieval of Business Information across a large engineering company. In order to mitigate viewpoint dependency and to provide additional context to support the valuation of retrieved information, a Faceted Classification scheme was developed. This paper discusses the approach taken to this development and how the ideas of information valuation were integrated.Copyright

Elucidating the design requirement for conventional and automated conceptual design

It is acknowledged that the design requirement capture phase of design is an important one, and that failures in this phase of the design often occur to the detriment of the end product. Thus assisting designers in this phase of design is useful. Elicitation of the design requirement from the customer (however defined) and evolving and translating it into a representation appropriate for driving design is a knowledge-intensive activity. In particular, both the customer and the designer must have knowledge of the domain in which they are working, and have overlapping sets of this knowledge. Without this overlap communication would be impossible. Similarly, in order to develop computerized designer support systems for this phase of the conceptual design process, it is necessary that the knowledge brought to this process by the human practitioners be shared between the human user and the computer. This is essential if meaningful communication and inference is to take place. This paper considers the basis for knowledge sharing and communication, and how knowledge ‘contexts’ provide the foundation for mutual understanding. This model is used to suggest a mechanism by which incomplete domain knowledge can be identified and embodied. The domain knowledge can then be applied so that communication between human and machine can be enhanced to provide design support in the design requirement elicitation process.

The Development of Case-Based Reasoning for Design — Techniques and Issues

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) offers a problem-solving strategy for situations in which complete knowledge of the task is not available and expertise is lacking — which is a common state of affairs for engineering design tasks. Moreover, the perceived similarity of this strategy to the manner in which humans might address certain design tasks is appealing, and so there has been a substantial amount of research into CBR systems for design.