Abstract
One of the biggest challenges in engineering design and manufacturing environments is the effective capture of and decoding of tacit knowledge. Fundamental to Life Cycle Engineering is the capture of engineering information and knowledge created at all stages of the product development process, from conceptual design through to product support and disposal. Consider this—the amount of vital information and knowledge lost when key design personnel retire—hence the need to capture meta-cognitive task-related strategies, particularly to support knowledge reuse and training. Many methods have been tried and tested with the successful few found to be very time consuming and expensive to implement and carry out; consequently, there is a need to investigate alternative paradigms for knowledge and information capture. This paper reports on a current industrial case study on knowledge capture methods employed by industrial partners in the design and manufacture of a variety of electro-mechanical products. The results suggest the need for new kinds and forms of knowledge capture methods and representation, particularly those associated with individual design engineering tasks. Following the findings, the paper presents a knowledge capture methodology for automatic real-time logging, capture and post-processing of design data from a virtual reality design system. Task-based design experiments were carried out with industrial partners to demonstrate the effective, unobtrusive and automatic capture and representation of various forms of design knowledge and information. Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of knowledge representations were also performed to determine which method was most effective at conveying design knowledge and information for other engineers.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bernard A, Laroche F, Da-Cunha C (2009) Models and methods for knowledge formalisation in a PLM context. In: 3rd international congress design and modelling of mechanical systems CMSM’2009, Hammamet, Tunisia
Bolisani E, Scarso E (1999) Information technology management: a knowledge-based perspective. Technovation 19:209–217
Brandt SC, Morbach J, Miatidis M, Theissen M, Jarke M, Marquardt W (2008) An ontology-based approach to knowledge management in design processes. Comput Chem Eng 32:320–342
Bukowitz W, Williams R (2000) The knowledge management fieldbook. Prentice Hall, London, UK
Coombs R, Hull R (1998) Knowledge management practices’ and path-dependency in innovation. Res Policy 27:237–253
Cusumano MA, Nobeoka K (1998) Thinking beyond lean: how multi-project management is transforming product development at Toyota and other companies. Free Press, New York
Dalkir K (2005) Knowledge management in theory and practice. Elsevier, Butterworth-Heinemann
Dani TH, Gadh R (1997) Creation of concept shape design via a virtual reality interface. Comput Aided Des 29:555–563
Davenport TH, Prusak L (1997) Information ecology: mastering the information and knowledge environment. Oxford University Press, USA
Desroches CM (2007) Knowledge management and outsourcing in an IT environment, dissertation. University of Johannesburg, October 31st
Extensible Markup Language (2009) http://www.w3.org/XML/. Last viewed on Jun 9th 2009
Grossman M, Bates S (2008) Knowledge capture within the biopharmaceutical clinical trials environment. J Inf Knowl Manag Syst 38(1):118–132
Gruninger M, Bock C (2005) PSL: a semantic domain for flow models. Softw Syst Model 4:209–231
Henriksen LB (2001) Knowledge management and engineering practices: the case of knowledge management, problem solving and engineering practices. Technovation 21:595–603
Hicks BJ, Culley SJ, Allen RD, Mullineux G (2002) A framework for the requirements of capturing, storing and reusing information and knowledge in engineering design. Int J Inf Manag 22:263–280
Hofer-Alfeis J (2008) Knowledge management solutions for the leaving expert issue. J Knowl Manag 12(4):44–54
Integrated Definition Methods (2009) http://www.idef.com/. Last viewed on Jun 9th 2009
Jin Y, Ishino Y (2006) DAKA: design activity knowledge acquisition through data-mining. Int J Prod Res 44(14):2813–2837
Kim S, Bracewell RH, Wallace KM (2004) From discourse analysis to answering design questions, international workshop on the application of language and semantic technologies to support knowledge management processes, October, Whittlebury, UK
Koners U, Goffin K (2007) Learning from postproject reviews: a cross-case analysis. J Prod Innov Manag 24:242–258
Kwong E, Lee WB (2009) Knowledge elicitation in reliability management in the airline industry. J Knowl Manag 13(2):35–48
Lenat DB (1995) CYC: a large-scale investment in knowledge infrastructure. Commun ACM 38(11):33–38
Lockwood K (2009) Using analogy to model spatial language use and multimodal knowledge capture, Ph.D dissertation, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, December
Marsh SJ, Stock GN (2003) Building dynamic capabilities in new product development through intertemporal integration. J Prod Innov Manag 20:136–148
McAdam R, O’Hare T, Moffett S (2008) Collaborative knowledge sharing in composite new product development: an aerospace study. Technovation 28:245–256
McElroy M (1999) The knowledge life cycle. ICM conference on knowledge management, Miami, Florisa, USA
Meyer M, Zack M (1996) The design and implementation of information products. Sloan Manag Rev 37(3):43–59
Mulder U, Whiteley A (2007) Emerging and capturing tacit knowledge: a methodology for a bounded environment. J Knowl Manag 11(1):68–83
Ng FM, Ritchie JM, Simmons JEL, Dewar RG (2000) Designing cable harnesses in virtual environments. JMater Process Technol 107:37–43
Nightingale P (1998) A cognitive model of innovation. Res Policy 27:689–709
Oliver N, Dostaler I, Dewberry E (2004) New product development benchmarks: the Japanese North American and UK consumer electronics industries. J High Technol Manag Res 15:249–265
Philbin SP (2008) Bid management: a systems engineering approach. J High Technol Manag Res 19:114–127
Regli WC, Kopena JB, Grauer M (2011) On the long-term retention of geometry-centric digital engineering artifacts. Comput Aided Des 43:820–837
Richter H, Schuchhard P, Abowd GD (1999) Automated capture and retrieval of architectural rationale. Online proc first working IFIP conference on software architecture (WICSA’99)
Ritchie JM, Simmons JEL, Dewar RG, Carpenter I (1999) A methodology for eliciting expert knowledge in virtual engineering environments. In: Kocaoglu DF, Anderson TR, Milosevic DZ, Niwa K, Tschirky H (eds) Selected volume on technology and innovation management. Portland, OR, USA, PICMET’99, pp 285–290
Ritchie JM, Sung RCW, Robinson G, Day PN, Dewar RG, Simmons JEL (2007) Cable harness design, assembly and installation using immersive virtual reality. Virtual Real 11:261–274
Robinson G, Ritchie JM, Day PN, Dewar RG (2007) System design and user evaluation of Co-Star: an immersive stereoscopic system for cable harness design. Comput Aided Des 39(4):245–257
Sainter P, Oldham K, Larkin A, Murton A, Brimble R (2000) Product knowledge management within knowledge-based engineering systems. In: Proceedings of DETC’00, ASME 2000 design engineering technical conference and computers and information in engineering conference Baltimore, Maryland, September 10–13
Sanderson M (2001) Records management and the capture of tacit knowledge. Rec Manag J 11(1):7–17
Schulz M, Lloyd AJ (2001) Codification and tacitness as knowledge management strategies: an empirical exploration. J High Technol Manag Res 12:139–165
Schwartz M, Gupta SK, Anand DK, Kavetsky R (2007) Virtual mentor: a step towards proactive user monitoring and assistance during virtual environment-based training. Performance metrics for intelligent systems (PerMIS) Workshop, Gaithersburg, MD, August
Sherwood AL, Covin JG (2008) Knowledge acquisition in university-industry alliances: an empirical investigation from a learning theory perspective. J Prod Innov Manag 25:162–179
Shipman FM III, McCall RJ (1997) Integrating different perspectives on design rationale: supporting the emergence of design rationale from design communication. Artif Intell Eng Design Anal Manuf 11(2):141–154
Sung RCW, Robinson G, Day PN, Ritchie JM, Corney JR, Lim T (2009) Automated design process modelling and analysis using immersive virtual reality. Comput Aided Des 41(12):1082–1094
Szykman S, Sriram RD (2006) Design and Implementation of the web-enabled NIST design repository. ACM Trans Int Technol 6(1):85–116
Vijaykumar G, Chakrabarti A (2008) Understanding the knowledge needs of designers during design process in industry. J Comput Inf Sci Eng 8:011004-1–011004-9
Wiig K (1993) Knowledge management foundations. Schema Press, Arlington
Wong WLP, Radcliffe DF (2000) The tacit nature of design knowledge. Technol Anal Strateg Manag 12(4):493–512
Acknowledgments
The work presented herein was undertaken under the aegis of the Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) Through-Life Grand Challenge Project (www.kimproject.org) funded primarily by the Engineering and Physical Research Council (EPSRC—Grant No EP/C534220/1), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC—Grant No RES-331-27-0006) and Heriot-Watt University‘s Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre (IMRC- Grant No GR/S12395/01). The authors would finally like to offer their gratitude to the industrial collaborators for their involvement in the research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sung, R.C.W., Ritchie, J.M., Lim, T. et al. Automated generation of engineering rationale, knowledge and intent representations during the product life cycle. Virtual Reality 16, 69–85 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-011-0196-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10055-011-0196-8