A survey of methods and approaches to knowledge management in the product development environment

Various approaches to capturing and retrieving engineering design information and intent are currently used in industry and play an important role in engineering design collaboration and concurrent engineering., At one end of the spectrum there are expert systems that perform complex analyses of designs based on information that is very specific and specialized for a particular' product. At the other end are less automated and less complex non-expert systems These systems provide the means to organize, collect, and reuse general collections of design intent and rationale in terms of notes, solutions to problems previously encountered, and best practices organized into a database or posted on an internal web site. By surveying the current state of engineering design knowledge management (KM) tools and implementation, conclusions can be drawn regarding the basic elements of successful knowledge management and the opportunities that exist to expand the capabilities and use of such systems in the product development environment. This is of particular relevance to current design practices that are becoming increasingly automated, decentralized, and global. Knowledge management on a large scale will require strategic planning and a deeper understanding to provide the standards for interoperability and exchange that will be needed. This paper provides an overview of approaches to knowledge management in the product development environment.