Capturing Knowledge Transfer Using Zachman Framework in Bio-inspired Design Process

Abstract

Natural entities are sources of inspiration for designers as they exhibit nature's unique and novel strategies and help them design products. For understanding and abstracting principles from nature, the knowledge of a biological entity is a must. Knowledge capture and representation in bio-inspired design is a complex process. Firstly, the biological entities are documented in different places such as books, articles, blogs, etc. A designer might need to spend considerable time while shuffling through these documents without coming to any conclusion. Secondly, biological knowledge is intricate and from a different domain. This complexity at the entity level and retrieving captured knowledge can lead to confusion and frustration. Thirdly, the roles of various stakeholders are not clearly defined. Hence, the knowledge collection, compilation, usage, and representation process are vague. We provide an organizational approach to represent bio-inspired design knowledge collection, compilation, and usage and representation process using the Zachman framework. Zachman framework provides the descriptive representation of enterprise architecture, uses six primitives, and can handle complex systems. In this research, we understand and apply the Zachman framework to capture and represent bio-inspired design knowledge with an organizational viewpoint. This research aims to organize and represent captured knowledge transfer, building, and representing processes and making it readily available for designers who can use it to make design decisions.