Manufacturing Knowledge Management Research Articles

An Introduction to the Impact of Knowledge Management in Lean Manufacturing

An Introduction to the Impact of Knowledge Management in Lean Manufacturing

An integrated process and data framework for the purpose of knowledge management and closed-loop quality feedback in additive manufacturing

An integrated process and data framework for the purpose of knowledge management and closed-loop quality feedback in additive manufacturing

A Study of Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning under Environmental Education

Under the globalized and fiercely competitive external environment, manufacturers have to enhance the organizational learning capability to cope with the challenge of Environmental Education. In addition to developing and cultivating the knowledge management capability, manufacturers have to co-develop, share, and spread relevant knowledge among different bodies in the external network. The theoretical relationship among manufacturers’ knowledge management in global manufacturing network, knowledge management in supply chain network, and organizational learning capability is proposed in this study, and the moderation effect of Environmental Education is further discussed. Based on 2013 International Manufacturing Strategy Survey VI (IMSS VI) of 463 manufacturers in 22 countries and regions. The empirical research results are concluded as below. (1) Manufacturers’ knowledge management in global manufacturing network and knowledge management in supply chain network present remarkably positive effects on the organizational learning capability. (2) Manufacturers’ knowledge management in supply chain network shows mediation effects on the relationship between knowledge management in global manufacturing network and organizational learning capability. (3) Environmental Education reveals notable moderation effects on the relationship between manufacturers’ knowledge management in supply chain network and organizational learning capability.

GDFM Approach for the selection of material and manufacturing processes

ABSTRACTIn the industrial sector, companies must manufacture a high quality and inexpensive product in a short time. In this competitive context, the DFM (Design For Manufacturing) improves profitability by reducing costs and manufacturing time while preserving the product quality. By treating the DFM elements, the GDFM approach (Global Design For Manufacturing) takes into account the manufacturing constraints as of the design phase and allows the designer to select the most appropriate material and processes. This paper describes the main stages of the GDFM approach that consists of the manufacturing knowledge management, the material selection and the selection of manufacturing processes. The material selection and the selection of processes uses the same fundamental approach that is composed of four successive stages: translation of requirements, screening of alternatives, ranking of alternatives and additional documentation. Thereafter, the use of the example of a piston has allowed the validation of the approach and the analysis of the obtained results. As a result, the GDFM approach improves the transition between the design and manufacturing, and allows the designer to select the most appropriate material and processes for the manufacture of the product.

Manufacturing knowledge management based on STEP-NC standard: a Closed-Loop Manufacturing approach

The paper presents a proposal to ensure Closed-Loop Manufacturing from CNC machines to CAM systems. The main goal is to manage knowledge from the CNC machine and to reuse it in the CAM system. This proposal aims to help CAM programmers for programming new machining sequences by choosing the best CNC machines parameters. The main contribution of this paper focuses on how to provide guidelines extracted from past CNC programs to the CAM programme for future cases. Although STEP-NC standard enhances bidirectional exchanges in the digital chain, from CAD systems to CNC machines, it does not allow the management of manufacturing knowledge. To achieve the information feedback from CNC machine to CAM system, Closed-Loop Manufacturing approach sets up a manufacturing loop using PLM systems supported by OntoSTEP-NC – an ontology based on STEP-NC. Centred on the Manufacturing Process Management platform Closed-Loop Manufacturing is a three-step process: (1) capitalisation of cutting parameters, the manufacturing features and the material to fill the Manufacturing Process Management database, (2) validation of last machining sequences and (3) manufacturing feature recognition to have the most relevant information integration from the Manufacturing Process Management in the CAM programming stage.

Knowledge management in secondary pharmaceutical manufacturing by mining of data historians—A proof-of-concept study

In this proof-of-concept study, a methodology is proposed to systematically analyze large data historians of secondary pharmaceutical manufacturing systems using data mining techniques. The objective is to develop an approach enabling to automatically retrieve operation-relevant information that can assist the management in the periodic review of a manufactory system. The proposed methodology allows one to automatically perform three tasks: the identification of single batches within the entire data-sequence of the historical dataset, the identification of distinct operating phases within each batch, and the characterization of a batch with respect to an assigned multivariate set of operating characteristics. The approach is tested on a six-month dataset of a commercial-scale granulation/drying system, where several millions of data entries are recorded. The quality of results and the generality of the approach indicate that there is a strong potential for extending the method to even larger historical datasets and to different operations, thus making it an advanced PAT tool that can assist the implementation of continual improvement paradigms within a quality-by-design framework.

The impact of organizational structure on knowledge management processes in Egyptian context

Knowledge management is recognized as important weapon for sustaining competitive advantage and improving performance. The evaluation of knowledge management (KM) performance has become increasingly important since it provides the reference for directing the organizations to enhance their performance and competitiveness. Also, working together involves interdependence, and people must therefore depend on others in various ways to accomplish their personal and organizational goal. This study aims to investigate the difference between manufacturing sector and service sector in Egypt as regards the impact of Organizational Structure dimensions on Knowledge Management activities. The study is carried out through administering questionnaires to 211 employees (110 employees from manufacturing sector and 101 employees from sector companies) from 7 organizations (4 manufacturing organizationsand 3 service organizations). The questionnaire consists of three parts. First part contains personal information. Second part contains Knowledge Management capabilities such as knowledge creation, sharing and utilization. Third part measures the organizational structure dimensions. The statements are assessed by using Likert scale of five points scale ranging from 1 - “highly agree” to 5 - “highly disagree”. The questionnaire was developed on the basis of some previous studies. In order to assess the reliability, the reliability coefficient was calculated by using Cranbach’s alpha that the values of cronbach’s alpha for the variables under study exceed 0.6, which is an acceptable level for the reliability of the variables. There are two variables in the present study:the independent variable is Organizational Structure dimensions, and the dependent variable is Knowledge Management. This study will find out the effect of Organizational Structure dimensions on Knowledge Management in manufacturing and service sectors. This study has multilevel units of analysis which are organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management activities, while the unit of observation is the employees working in the companies in both sectors. Collecting and analyzing data based on correlation coefficient of Pearson and hierarchal regression showed that there was a direct relationship between organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management more in service sector than the product sector and opened up new questions to be explored by future research. Knowledge management activities in product sector are predicted by centralization and integration dimensions. Also, in service sector, knowledge management activities arehighly predicted by centralization, integration and complexity. For the future research endeavors, it is recommended to investigate the impact of demographic characteristics as control variables and the cultural dimensions on the relationship between organizational structure dimensions and knowledge management activities. It is also recommended to measure the effect of other organizational dimensions such asprofessionalism, personnel ratios

Product Knowledge and Lifecycle Management in Project-Based Manufacturing

Changes taking place in project-based manufacturing emphasize the importance of agile manufacturing, product knowledge management and product lifecycle information. The paper describes dependencies between product definition and production strategy covering also other potential areas of research i.e. growth of industrial service business and development of manufacturing and supply networks. As an outcome it can be argued that more research is needed to align product lifecycle management in project-based manufacturing, as well as to cover the evolving information needs of internal and external stakeholders. Due to the increase of industrial services, also services should be included as a part of product definition; the extended product description introduces a new set of requirements that need to be taken into account as a part of product and production strategy definition.

Novel strategies for global manufacturing systems interoperability

This paper reviews some of the most recently reported research into novel strategies for global manufacturing systems interoperability. Such research can be categorised as addressing four broad topic areas: the sensing manufacturing enterprise; semantics and knowledge management in manufacturing; service orientation and the need for negotiation; and business interoperability. Thus we identify a spectrum of research from the management of hardware and virtual sensing devices, through the semantic interpretation of the data and information generated by these, and its utilisation to support the collaborative manufacturing network lifecycle through service oriented software, and ultimately the provision of effective business interoperability. This study includes conceptual, theoretical, empirical and technological contributions, illustrated by real examples and demonstrating the novelty in comparison with previously reported results. The paper concludes elaborating final considerations on novel strategies for global manufacturing systems interoperability.

Process comprehension for shopfloor manufacturing knowledge reuse

Computer numerical controlled (CNC) machines play an important role in the production capacity of manufacturing enterprises. With the advance of computing technology, computer-aided systems (CAx) have been intensively used together with the CNC machines. The information flow from CAx to CNC machines is unidirectional, due to the widespread use of G&M codes to programme the CNC machines and the mechanism of the generation of part programmes. The CNC machines at the shopfloor have been isolated from the CAx chain. There is no automatic way to capture and feedback the shopfloor knowledge. Reusing shopfloor process knowledge offers the enterprises opportunities to improve manufacturing quality and control while enabling savings in cost and time. Rapid product development relies heavily on quick and reliable process planning and knowledge reuse to facilitate the process plan efficiently and effectively. In this research, the process comprehension approach has been utilised to capture the process knowledge at the shopfloor. A novel method has been proposed to reuse the process knowledge with different manufacturing resources. In this paper, a short review on manufacturing knowledge management is provided. The process comprehension approach is then presented. An example part is used as the case study to illustrate the knowledge capture using process comprehension and how the process knowledge can be utilised to manufacture the product with new manufacturing resources.

Ubiquitous Assembly Cell Concept and Requirements

This paper discusses the effect of ubiquitous computing concepts, namely ubiquitous manufacturing, on manufacturing knowledge management, and details a single implementation of an assembly cell concept to support ubiquitous manufacturing paradigm. The manufacturing cell concept and possible effects of ubiquitous manufacturing are further discussed to form some requirements for manufacturing and product data management for enabling such functionality.

Manufacturing knowledge management

The continuous growth in socioeconomics environment dynamics and the complexity that surrounds manufacturing systems have made companies review their strategies and practices related to their production systems. They have been concentrating efforts at the development of Production Models, and thus the Resource Based Theory has been revisited. This study aims to identify the critical elements that characterize the relationship between manufacturing strategy, technology planning, and knowledge management actions. Based on the theoretical context of manufacturing and technological strategies, a processual framework for knowledge management is proposed. The developed process is tested through the identification of critical elements of knowledge management in an automaker company using the Cambridge Process Approach, an action research strategy. This paper summarizes a discussion of the critical elements of knowledge management in order to propose a set of KM actions observing the close relationship necessary between manufacturing and technology strategies.

Research on ontology-based integration of product knowledge for collaborative manufacturing

One of the most important research subjects germane to knowledge management in collaborative manufacturing is the integration of heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among different collaborative enterprises. To deal with the problem of optimization of knowledge integration in collaborative manufacturing, an ontology-based framework of knowledge integration is presented to transform the problem of knowledge integration into a problem of ontology integration. First of all, a collaborative business process for collaborative enterprises is described, and then an ontology-based framework of knowledge integration is established. Under the condition of analyzing the structure of knowledge ontology, an ontology schema of knowledge concept is discussed. Aiming at the ontology schema, a method of ontology integration based on ontology similarity is improved. The method is composed of ontology mapping and ontology merging, which is based on calculated result of ontology similarity between local ontology and global ontology. Finally, the implementation of the framework of knowledge integration is described, and the application results meet the requirement of the knowledge integration to ensure that validity of the ontology integration method was proved.

A hierarchical text classification system for manufacturing knowledge management and retrieval

Intensive global competition is pushing manufacturing companies ever harder in their strife for constant profit. As the world evolves into a knowledge based economy, manufacturing companies are increasingly concerned about the acquisition, management and utilisation of advanced R&D information and knowledge from both internal organisations and external resources, like e-journals and digital libraries. This paper describes our recent research on a Knowledge Management and Retrieval system based on Hierarchical Text Classification scheme. This system organises the large volume of manufacturing related electronic documents according to the manufacturing knowledge taxonomy, then classifies and further routes the searching queries based on manufacturing concepts to the corresponding categories for documents retrieval. In this way, better performance of information retrieval is achieved as searching is directed under the guidance of the manufacturing knowledge.

Knowledge management in 21st century manufacturing

As markets have become global, more and more manufacturing companies achieve global operations through various strategic business alliances including joint ventures and outsourcing, etc. Since manufacturing has become global to address the needs of the global market, companies take advantage of advanced information technologies in achieving their global supply chain. It is not enough to just establish an integrated information system such as enterprise resource planning (ERP); it is also important to see to what extent this has been used to facilitate innovation and knowledge diffusion along the supply chain for an ultimate improvement of productivity and quality and in turn manufacturing organizational competitiveness. Without the integration of people and information technology/information systems (IT/IS), it is very hard to achieve any significant improvement in organizational performance. However, there are not many articles or reports that deal with knowledge management in advanced manufacturing organizations. Advanced manufacturing enterprises are characterized by a physically distributed enterprise environment, outsourcing and IT-enabled supply chain management (SCM). This paper makes an attempt to review the literature available on knowledge management (KM) in manufacturing with the objective of identifying the gap between theory and practice, strategies and techniques for KM systems in advanced manufacturing environments. The literature on KM in manufacturing has been reviewed using a suitable classification scheme with the objective of developing a framework for managing knowledge in manufacturing and suggesting some future research directions.

Managing knowledge in manufacturing: results of a Delphi study in European manufacturing industry

We examine the role and importance of knowledge management in European manufacturing, based on a comprehensive Delphi survey that covers a wide range of aspects relevant for future competitiveness of European manufacturing. The importance of various knowledge management activities, their estimated time of realisation, effects on employment, competitiveness, living and working conditions and possible barriers of implementation such as the level of education and qualification, economic viability, social acceptability, technical feasibility are analysed. The results highlight the consensus about the importance of knowledge as a strategically important resource and indicate a shift from resource-based towards knowledge-based manufacturing has already started. The results reveal inconsistencies between avowed importance of knowledge management and scepticism toward some aspects that potentially foster knowledge developments. It also indicates that education emerges as frequently mentioned barrier for implementing knowledge management activities. The paper concludes with policy recommendations aimed at strengthening knowledge-based production in the European manufacturing.

Manufacturing knowledge management strategy

The study sought to understand the components of knowledge management strategy from the perspective of staff in UK manufacturing organizations. To analyse this topic, we took an empirical approach and collaborated with two manufacturing organizations. Our main finding centres on the key components of a knowledge management strategy, and the relationships between it and manufacturing strategy and corporate strategy. Other findings include: the nature of knowledge in manufacturing organizations; the relevance of (in)formal processes; top-down and bottom-up communication; taking ownership for information processes. We also make comments on the development of action plans for better knowledge management. The implications are that, for an integrated approach to knowledge management strategy in manufacturing organizations, involvement across the organization and at all levels is necessary.

175 Knowledge-based systems and knowledge management in product design and manufacturing: Experiences and future directions

175 Knowledge-based systems and knowledge management in product design and manufacturing: Experiences and future directions

Knowledge-Based Systems and Knowledge Management in Product Design and Manufacturing: Experiences and Future Directions

Abstract The application of KBS in the product generation process within SIEMENS Corp. in Germany is described with examples of running systems and of work in progress. The reasons for the slow increase of KBS applications in the last years and learned lectures of past KBS projects are discussed. Some challenges on knowledge processing are treated, e.g. efficient knowledge acquisiton and, in more detail, knowledge management tasks like knowledge analysis, effective use of distributed knowledge and the reuse of knowledge bases. Finally possible effects of KBS in organizational production changes are discussed