The Role of Knowledge Based Engineering in Product Configuration

Digital design and manufacturing are critical drivers of competitiveness but only few companies and organizations have the capability to support digitalization across the whole Product Lifecycle. In several cases the information flow is discontinuous, the roles and the issues are not properly defined, the tools are heterogeneous and not integrated in the company organization. An approach that considers an appropriate data and information organization, an efficient internal organization and the availability of integrated software tools that are implementing the industrial best practices, could innovate important and critical aspect of the industrial processes. This paper gives an overview of the main themes related to Knowledge Management in industrial context, focusing on product configuration process. The current role of the knowledge in product configuration will be discussed. Then, a brief overview on Knowledge-based Engineering will be presented. Regarding Knowledge Based methodology, acquisition and formalization techniques and tools will be analyzed. Finally, an application focused on assembly lines configuration will be presented.