Knowledge for decision-making in milestone-driven product development processes

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Rainer Stark
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 312995500

The development of complex products in a global environment requires efficient processes. Project plans and milestones have been established for planning and implementation within project management. To these milestones the current design status of the artefacts will be reviewed in regard to different criteria, like design for manufacture and marketability. In order to enable decision-making the complete knowledge (like knowledge for products, methods, organisation and tools) has to be available. Therefore, communication processes and knowledge exchange for technical artefacts have to function smoothly for the entire product development process. Additionally, decision maker need sufficient knowledge for the implementation of different artefacts regarding the evaluation of milestones. Scientific research in the field of knowledge networks in milestone-driven product development processes has been conducted inadequately so far. In this subproject the correlation between knowledge carriers, knowledge types and the product development process will be analysed in order to develop a new methodology which will be validated in a use case.The main objective is the development of a new approach for the knowledge based decision-making in milestone-driven product development processes regarding engineering design. In order to manage product, process and organisational complexity a generic reference process in combination with an effect model will be developed to visualize the links between knowledge types, knowledge carriers and artefacts. Based on the results of episodic expert interviews, generic phases and milestones of the product development process as well as the correlation of knowledge types and knowledge carriers with the phases and milestones will be developed and represented in an effect model. Furthermore, the development of a new approach ensures the utilization of the results in companies. Therefore, the company specific development process will be reproduced according to the defined phases and milestones. The information of knowledge carriers and knowledge types can be used to improve the knowledge management and to conduct the product development process. In conclusion, the collective knowledge of different knowledge carriers can be appropriately provided in milestone-driven development processes. The improvement of the proactive, context orientated provision of knowledge enables everyone involved in the process to improve the procedure according to time and quality.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants