A hierarchical assembly knowledge representation framework and microdevice assembly ontology

Microdevice assembly knowledge is dispersed in different product development phases, such as assembly design, assembly simulation and assembly process, and a lot of essential knowledge is implicit and heterogeneous. It is difficult for researchers and computer-aided systems to share and reuse different assembly knowledge quickly and accurately, leading to inefficient and inaccurate assembly process planning. To integrate and structurally represent the assembly design knowledge, assembly simulation knowledge and assembly process knowledge of microdevice, this paper proposes a hierarchical assembly knowledge representation framework and develops a microdevice assembly ontology. There are four layers in the framework, including the organizational structure, the structural relationship, the assembly accuracy, and the process characteristics. The assembly design knowledge that is integrated involves the basic properties of the assembly object as well as the spatial, mating, and assembly relationship, etc. Assembly simulation knowledge refers to the permissible range of assembly force and contact force. Knowledge of assembly processes comprises assembly sequence and operating method of the part. The microdevice assembly ontology is developed based on METHONTOLOGY, and implemented with Protégé. The corresponding SWRL rules have been established to inference the implicit knowledge in assembly design. An ignition target assembly knowledge model based on the microdevice assembly ontology is constructed. In the assembly task of the ignition target, engineers can quickly and accurately access the required assembly knowledge from the ignition target assembly knowledge model, thus verifying the integrity and validity of the microdevice assembly ontology.     

A study on the collaborative management method of product design cycle knowledge

Because of the ever-increasing market competition and rapidly changing of customers’ requirements, the innovation quality and design efficiency of knowledge-intensive product has become the key factors in business success. The traditional knowledge management method which is based on design reuse and the single categories of design knowledge cannot satisfy these demands any more. Therefore, in order to effectively support the innovative design process of enterprises, a design knowledge collaborative management method based on multi-knowledge migration is proposed. According to the characteristics and functions during the product design process, the design knowledge is divided into three categories, design principle knowledge, design domain knowledge and design object knowledge. By extracting the operation attributes, relation attributes and physical attributes of the design knowledge, a unified knowledge representation model is established for different design participants. The ontology concept and knowledge matrix are used to establish the association between various categories of design knowledge. Multifarious knowledge search methods include keyword, function, principle and natural semantics are proposed for different design participants in different design stages. They can not only realize the knowledge reuse in the same domain but also support the cross-domain knowledge migration among different domain. Finally, based on the system analysis modelling, a design knowledge collaborative platform is established for the design process of mechanical products. A case study is also presented to illustrate the implementation of the platform.     

KnowledgeScope: managing knowledge in context

Knowledge repositories have been implemented in many organizations, but they often suffer from non-use. This research considers two key design factors that cause non-use: the extra burden on users to document knowledge in the repository, and the lack of a standard knowledge structure that facilitates knowledge sharing among users with different perspectives. We propose a design of a knowledge management system called KnowledgeScope that addresses these problems through (1) an integrated workflow support capability that captures and retrieves knowledge as an organizational process proceeds, i.e., within the context in which it is created and used, and (2) a process meta-model that organizes that knowledge and context in a knowledge repository. In this paper, we describe this design and report the results from implementing it in a real-life organization.     

Using behavioral modeling technology to capture designer's intent

Ever since the introduction of geometric modeling technology in computer-aided design (CAD) systems, engineering designers have been able to speed up the design process and improve the design quality as well as collaborate on a design project with co-designers seated in different parts of the world. One of the recent emergences in the field of CAD tools is that of behavioral modeling (BM). It extends the capabilities of existing solid modeling applications by capturing the designer's knowledge in the computer model(s) of a design. It also assists the designer by iteratively checking model variances against designer specified constraints and goals so as to arrive at an optimum design during a reasonably short span of time. This article discusses the characteristics of its applications in a number of CAD systems. Some of the common characteristics include working within, or in conjunction with, 3D models and using behavioral features to embed design knowledge in a model. In the case of some high-end solid modelers, BM functionality has been combined with knowledge based engineering techniques.     

A part affordance-based approach for capturing detailed design knowledge

Design knowledge reuse is widely accepted as an effective strategy for designers to develop robust artifacts with less time and lower cost. However, there has been very little research on how to help designers capture detailed design knowledge for reuse. As a result, most detailed design knowledge still has to remain in designers’ memories as tacit knowledge, which can easily get lost due to oblivion or the mobility of designers. Therefore, this paper attempts to develop a part affordance-based approach for externalizing and capturing detailed design knowledge for effective reuse. It first introduces a part model for representing the detailed design-related information. Based on the relational theory for design, the concept, part affordance, is then employed to help designers externalize and capture various lifecycle factors that are implicit in a detailed design. Based on the affordance constraint axiom, a systematic approach is then proposed for deriving tacit design knowledge from captured part affordances through the analysis of extreme working situations. The proposed approach has been implemented as the Design Knowledge-Capturing System (DKCS). A fixture design case has been employed to illustrate the proposed approach.     

Semantic Web based innovative design knowledge modeling for collaborative design

This paper describes a study about how to use the Semantic Web technologies for innovative design knowledge modeling in a multi-agent distributed design environment. Semantic Web based knowledge modeling for innovative design is proposed as prelude to the meaningful agent communication and knowledge reuse for collaborative work among multidisciplinary organizations. A model for innovative design is proposed at first, based on which a knowledge schema is brought forward. For sharing the design knowledge among an internet-based or distributed work team, even globally, A RDF-based knowledge model is presented to realize its representation on Semantic Web. A Semantic Web based repository for innovative design and its API for topper Semantic Web applications have been also constructed. The proposed knowledge modeling extends traditional product modeling with capabilities of innovative design, knowledge sharing and distributed problem solving, and is employed as a content language within the messages in the proposed multi-agent system architecture. The proposed approach is viewed as a promising knowledge management method that facilitates the implementation of computer supported cooperative work in innovative design of Semantic Web applications.     

Supporting management and maintenance of manufacturing knowledge in design automation systems

Many companies base their business strategy on customized products. To enable a high level of product adaptation in an engineer-to-order approach companies invest time and resources to develop design automation systems. Initially, when implementing a design automation system, the focus is on successfully developing a system that generates design variants based on different customer specifications (i.e. the execution of system embedded knowledge and system output). However, in the long run, two important aspects are the management and maintenance of the knowledge that governs the designs. Further, the increasing emphasis on deploying a holistic view of a product’s properties and functions implies an increasing number of life-cycle requirements. The knowledge to adapt the product to fulfil these requirements should also be used and consequently incorporated into the knowledge-base, allowing for correct decisions to be made. In a system for automated variant design, the implications on the product of these life-cycle requirements have to be expressed as algorithms, production rules and/or computational statements to be intertwined with the design calculations. The number of requirements can be significantly large, and the knowledge scattered over different application systems used for the realisation of the design automation system. This makes it difficult to manage and maintain the system as the product life-cycle environment changes and evolves.In this article, the focus is on the requirements related to manufacturing. For that, an approach for the modelling of manufacturing requirements, supporting both knowledge execution and information management, in systems for automated variant design is introduced. The approach has been applied and refined when developing a design automation system in cooperation with a company to demonstrate and verify the approach’s usability.     

基于本体和粗糙集的协同产品设计知识约简

协同产品设计具有知识来源广、知识类型复杂多样等特点。为简化产品设计知识库并从中有效地提取出对产品设计人员有价值的知识,提出了基于本体和粗糙集的协同产品设计知识约简方法。首先通过引入本体技术对设计知识进行本体建模、显式定义语义和统一表达,以增加产品设计知识的语义;然后通过决策属性的正域及核求解等知识约简方法将设计知识库中对设计人员不重要的、冗余的知识进行约简,精练设计知识库,分析并求解出了约简后知识库中知识的依赖度,从而为设计人员选取与设计密切相关的知识提供依据。最后以汽车发动机的协同设计为例介绍了本文的方法。     

A methodology for learning across application domains for databasedesign systems

Although database design tools have been developed that attempt to automate (or semiautomate) the design process, these tools do not have the capability to capture common sense knowledge about business applications and store it in a context-specific manner. As a result, they rely on the user to provide a great deal of "trivial" details and do not function as well as a human designer who usually has some general knowledge of how an application might work based on his or her common sense knowledge of the real world. Common sense knowledge could be used by a database design system to validate and improve the quality of an existing design or even generate new designs. This requires that context-specific information about different database design applications be stored and generalized into information about specific application domains (e.g., pharmacy, daycare, hospital, university, manufacturing). Such information should be stored at the appropriate level of generality in a hierarchically structured knowledge base so that it can be inherited by the subdomains below. For this to occur, two types of learning must take place. First, knowledge about a particular application domain that is acquired from specific applications within that domain are generalized into a domain node (e.g., entities, relationships, and attributes from various hospital applications are generalized to a hospital node). This is referred to as within domain learning. Second, the information common to two (or more) related application domain nodes is generalized to a higher-level node; for example, knowledge from the car rental and video rental domains may be generalized to a rental node. This is called across domain learning. This paper presents a methodology for learning across different application domains based on a distance measure. The parameters used in this methodology were refined by testing on a set of representative cases; empirical testing provided further validation     

Design Management Absorption Model: A Framework to Describe and Measure the Absorption Process of Design Knowledge by SMEs with Little or no Prior Design Experience

The introduction of new design knowledge or design resources in companies with little or no design experience has been at the core of design support programmes in several countries. Scholars investigated the use of design and identified different design and design management capabilities to deploy design effectively in companies of all sizes. However, how design and design management capability is built in SMEs with little or no prior design experience is insufficiently investigated. Based on the absorptive capacity construct from the broader field of innovation studies, this paper proposes a comprehensive design management absorption model that includes design management capabilities enabling design absorption in SMEs with little or no prior design experience as well as indicators to measure the progress of absorption. The model allows for analysing and guiding the process companies go through when using design as a strategic resource for the first time.     

An investigation into sustainable product conceptualization using a design knowledge hierarchy and Hopfield network

In recent years, there has been a paradigm shift on providing design services from manufacturing/marketing to sustainability. Although a number of studies have been conducted on sustainable issues in many aspects, impacts such as multidisciplinary integration and product life-cycle consideration have not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate into the integration of functional, marketing, and commercial perspectives with product sustainability in the early stage of product conceptualization. In this study, a sustainable product conceptualization system (SPCS) is proposed. The product platform of a specific product is first generated by designers or domain experts using general sorting, a requirement acquisition technique, and design knowledge hierarchy (DKH), a knowledge representation structure. Based on the product platform, initial design options can be obtained using morphological configuration, i.e., combining different part options. Subsequently, the Hopfield network is used to narrow down initial design space based on initial design criteria solicited by domain experts. To select the preferred design options for the purpose of sustainable product conceptualization, the sustainability-cost pairs can be obtained based on the rated sustainability and cost criteria solicited using repertory grids by domain experts. Consequently, the results are discussed on the coordination between product sustainability degree and cost efficiency. A case study on cellular-phone design is conducted for system illustration.     

Trading off usability and security in user interface design through mental models

The aim of this paper is to establish the foundations for developing a mental model that bridges the gap between usability and security in user-centred designs. To this purpose, a meta-model has been developed to align design features with the users’ requirements through tacit knowledge elicitation. The meta-model describes the combinatorial relationships of Security, Usability and Mental (SUM) and how these components can be used to design a usable and secure system. The SUM meta-model led to the conclusion that there is no antagonism between usability and security. However, the degree of usable security depends on the ability of the designer to capture and implement the user’s tacit knowledge. In fact, the SUM meta-model seeks the dilution of the trading-off effects between security and usability through compensating synergism of the tacit knowledge. A usability security cognitive map has been developed for the major constituents of usability and security to clarify the interactions and their influences on the meta-model stipulations. The three intersecting areas of the three components’ relationships are manipulated to expand the Optimal Equilibrium Solution (OES) (δ) expanse. To put the SUM meta-model into practice, knowledge management principles have been proposed for implementing user-centred security and user-centred design. This is accomplished by using collaborative brainpower from various knowledge constellations to design a system within the user’s current and future perception boundaries. Therefore, different knowledge groups, processes, techniques, tactics and practices have been proposed for knowledge transfer and transformation during the mental model development.     

面向机械产品概念设计的知识库设计研究

针对机械产品概念设计中设计知识功能语义定义模糊和隐形知识重用率低的问题, 研究了基于领域本体表示的知识库设计方法,支持设计知识的自助发布管理和语义信息检索等 功能。提出设计知识表示的本体模式和建模方法,建立领域本体;从概念设计方案需求粒度、 功能目标及企业知识自管理等方面考虑,建立多维设计知识分类体系;设计JSON 文件到OWL 文件的映射规则,实现设计知识的发布、维护、存储和检索。最终实现面向机械产品概念设计 的知识管理,为企业设计人员提供知识共享和重用,支持产品概念设计的方案创新。     

有限元分析数据的动力头设计强规则获取方法

研究如何从有限元分析数据中提取设计知识的方法。对某个设计问题,依据设计变量的不同取值构建正交试验表;对正交试验表中每一种试验方案的变量取值采用Pro/E建立设计问题的实体模型;该实体模型经ADAMS动力学与运动学分析后获得满足工作要求的设计参数;依据该设计参数在ANSYS应力分析中获得设计问题的不同特征数据;并以该特征数据以及问题的相关计算数据构成新的二维表;采用粗糙集理论对二维表数据进行知识抽取。以锚杆钻机动力头设计的ANSYS分析数据抽取知识加以验证,验证结果获得了动力头设计的3条指导性强关联规则（知识）,从而证明该知识获取方法是正确有效的,该方法对其他工程分析软件抽取设计知识具有很好的借鉴作用。     

基于工作流和知识点驱动的知识推送研究

针对设计师的知识需求主动进行设计知识推送可有助于提高设计的效率,促进知识的应用与创新。为给具有不同知识背景的设计师进行更加精确动态的设计知识推送,提出了一种基于工作流和知识点双引擎驱动的知识推送机制。先由工作流节点任务信息与设计师知识需求进行知识点的一次推送,再以属性相似度算法为辅助衡量进行二次补充推荐,实现了设计师与设计知识的互补;最后以圣泓云平台搭载了该推送系统,并验证了其推送的可行性。     

Knowledge management of product design: A requirements-oriented knowledge management framework based on Kansei engineering and knowledge map

For the knowledge management of product design, knowledge innovation is the foundation and motivation for the independent innovation and enhancing the core competitiveness. Most of the product knowledge exists in the brain of designers. How to obtain the required knowledge accurately in massive knowledge database becomes the key to knowledge innovation. However, the design knowledge based on consumer’s requirement has not been extensively studied. There is no consensus on the reasonable and effective implementation of the knowledge management framework to select the optimum design knowledge based on the consumer’s requirements. In this study, to efficiently realize the knowledge acquisition and knowledge selection, a requirements-oriented knowledge management model is established, with the advantage of Kansei engineering in knowledge acquisition and multi-objective decision-making in knowledge selection. Finally, the outdoor leisure chairs design is used as a case study to explain the implementation of the knowledge management framework. To reveal the advantages of the framework, it was compared with other frameworks. The results show that the proposed knowledge management framework is more efficient and provided a method of designers to acquire design knowledge based on the consumer’s requirements.     

Development of an Internet-enabled interactive fixture design system

Fixture design is a complex and an intuitive process. An efficient fixture design system is essential to cut costs and reduce the product lead-time. In today's manufacturing landscape, various computer-aided systems exist to aid the various stages of manufacturing. A fixture design system should be able to transfer information with the various other systems to bring about a seamless product design and manufacturing environment. A fixture design system should also be portable on different operating platforms. This paper addresses the development of an Internet-enabled interactive fixture design system. The Internet and the use of XML as a file format provide a means for the transfer of information and knowledge between the various computer-aided manufacturing systems. The system has been implemented using Java and is based on a three-tier Thin Client-Fat Server architecture. This ensures the platform independent performance of the system. A locating scheme independent interactive fixture design method has also been developed in this work for detailed fixture design.     

基于仿真数据的钻机动力头设计知识获取方法*

研究了如何从工程仿真获得的中间数据中提取设计知识的方法。对同一个设计问题,依据设计变量的不同取值构建正交实验表,对正交实验表中每一种实验方案的变量取值采用Pro/E建立设计问题的实体模型,将该实体模型导入ADAMS内并添加约束及驱动,从仿真后处理中导出设计问题的不同特征数据,并以该特征数据以及该问题的相关计算数据构成新的二维表,采用粗糙集理论对二维表数据进行知识抽取。以锚杆钻机动力头设计的仿真数据抽取知识加以验证,验证结果得出动力头设计的体积取中间值并且轴向推力取较大值时最终的冲击钻进能力才最强等实用性知     

Analysis of the Functional Block Involved in the Design of Radial Basis Function Networks

The main architectures, learning abilities and applications of radial basis function (RBF) neural networks are well documented. However, to the best of our knowledge, no in-depth analyses have been carried out into the influence on the behaviour of the neural network arising from the use of different alternatives for the design of an RBF (different non-linear functions, distances, number of neurons, structures, etc.). Thus, as a complement to the existing intuitive knowledge, it is necessary to have a more precise understanding of the significance of the different alternatives. In the present contribution, the relevance and relative importance of the parameters involved in such a design are investigated by using a statistical tool, the ANalysis Of the VAriance (ANOVA). In order to obtain results that are widely applicable, various problems of classification, functional approximation and time series estimation are analyzed. Conclusions are drawn regarding the whole set.     

Requirement acquisition in system development: A human-centred perspective of the tacit requirements

Specification acquisition in the system design process has been improved since the middle of the 1980s when the upper CASE tools appeared. On the contrary the quality of requirement acquisition in the upper processes of system design has not been enhanced as much as specification acquisition. Understanding the user's requirements is indispensable as one of the basic conditions for building systems that can really satisfy users.This article discusses obtaining requirement knowledge, in terms of human-centred design. The focus is on the process of requirement acquisition, where there is room for one to make full use of human knowledge in a dynamic manner.