Capturing Expert Knowledge for Supporting Design and Manufacturing of Injection Molds

Knowledge based approach is effective for renovating design and manufacturing processes. The objective of this paper is to investigate roles and usages of expert engineering knowledge in high-quality manufacturing, and to study a practical knowledge capturing method for realizing engineering support tools. An engineer oriented interface for a capturing method is proposed, and a flexible representation framework is studied for various types of expert knowledge. An integrated knowledge-based system has been developed for mold design support. The results have been evaluated by design and manufacturing of molds for cellular phones, and have shown substantial reduction of lead time for mold production.