Assessment of a Product Range Model concept to support design reuse using rule based systems and case based reasoning

Knowledge reuse is recognised as a key element to support agile and effective decision-making processes during product development. The provision of information and knowledge for reuse relies on defined information structures and requires computational techniques that enable the reuse process within an integrated environment. Although, representing, saving, and sharing information is relatively well known for product modelling, it is accepted that effective and agile product development also requires knowledge sharing. For this reason, extensions of the Product Model structure are required to support specific product development process phases. This work argues that a product information model combined with extended knowledge models can provide decision support throughout the product development phases. This paper presents the results of an investigation into a specific extended knowledge model concept, named a Product Range Model (PRM), which combines both rule based systems and case based reasoning to provide product design decision support. Two product development scenarios, injection moulding and friction materials, have been selected in order to evaluate the ideas presented. For both applications the relevance of the models to support the capture and reuse of information and knowledge is stressed.