Towards the development of a knowledge based decision support system for new product development

This paper describes the development of a knowledge based decision support system for project managers and engineers during the various phases of New Product Development (NPD) in a Concurrent Engineering (CE) environment. A relatively new technology called Case Based Reasoning (CBR) has been used to develop and implement the system. The paper discusses the process of developing the system, the technical development issues, the current state of development/implementation and how the final system contributes towards a CE conducive culture. The paper concludes that using technology like CBR, which can be costly to develop and implement, requires the company to train their managers and team members to document their experiences in a manner which others can use. Additionally there needs to a commitment to maintain and improve the knowledge base. An 'information sharing and knowledge friendly' culture hence needs to be instilled for such decision support tools to succeed.