A Combined Knowledge and Information Infrastructure to Support Product Development

Abstract

The provision of infrastructures, which can support co-operation and sharing across product development, is critical for effective virtual enterprises. The concept of a Product Model is well accepted as an integrating infrastructure, capturing information about a specific product. In this paper an information-knowledge model, termed a Product Range Model, is described which supports the reuse of information and knowledge in product development. The detailed relationships between design information and knowledge in this model and its interaction with product model structures are discussed. Injection moulding is used, as an example, to highlight the way that combined information-knowledge infrastructures can be constructed to support the product development process within a virtual enterprise.