Intelligent Search for Product Development Information - an Ontology-based Approach

The active management of information and knowledge is nowadays considered an important means to achieve an enterprise’s effectiveness and competitiveness. Product development is conceived as an information processing activity respectively an information intensive activity. Thus, adequate strategies, methods and tools for information and knowledge management in the product development process become a vital factor for a company’s success. A survey in industry, conducted by the authors of this paper, has shown that personal communication still represents the most favorable source of knowledge and information. However, there are situations where a personal exchange of knowledge is not possible. The knowledge bearer might be temporarily (e.g. business trip, vacation, sickness) or permanently (e.g. retirement, company leaving) not available or simply unknown to the searcher. Here, digital databases within the enterprise or publicly available sources (such as the internet) represent potential alternatives. When searching for information within digital repositories, however, certain problems arise. Finding relevant contents is often a difficult process, consuming time and nerves of the involved actors. In this paper, two industrial case studies are presented that address these general issues on a concrete level.     «

The active management of information and knowledge is nowadays considered an important means to achieve an enterprise’s effectiveness and competitiveness. Product development is conceived as an information processing activity respectively an information intensive activity. Thus, adequate strategies, methods and tools for information and knowledge management in the product development process become a vital factor for a company’s success. A survey in industry, conducted by the authors of this pap...     »