Knowledge Brokering for Assisting the Generation of Automotive Product Design

The aim of this paper is to present a pragmatic model for the systematic transfer of ideas and knowledge at the early stage of product design in a company environment. In using the model, the basic premise is not to build a new product ‘from scratch’ but to reuse existing ideas and knowledge from other objects and products developed previously. This new approach is called Knowledge Brokering (KB).The developed KB model consists of four sequential steps, which cover the collection and clustering of explicit design knowledge, the systematic learning process, retention and transfer of tacit design knowledge. The premises for using the KB model and case study results from the automotive industry on the advantages and limitations of the new approach are also described.