Framework for the support of knowledge-based engineering template update

The present paper addresses the problem of knowledge templates update in product design. A framework is proposed that helps design engineers during the template update process by providing a decision support system and tools in order to support template instances update. The former is an issue-based information system designed to allow the collaboration between various experts in order to solve template related problems. The latter aims at providing a sequence of updates to follow in order to propagate the modifications on templates to their instances. This sequence is computed with data extracted from models and templates, which are stored in an ontology designed for this purpose. The ontology is used to represent and to infer knowledge about templates, products and their relations. This facilitates the construction of the update sequence as it provides an efficient overview of relationships, even implicit ones. The proposed framework fills an actual gap concerning template updates, which slows down templates adoption for large-scale industrial use. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.