A knowledge management approach through product lifecycle management implementation: An industrial case study

During new product development, knowledge must be exchanged across organizational, geographical, cultural, and language barriers [1]. Emerging technologies such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) combined with Business Process Modelling (BPM) tools provide means to enable collaboration among distributed participants specifically in the product design process. In this paper, an alternative approach for planning and development of projects that requires knowledge management and information integration in small and medium enterprises, is presented. A case study in the Architecture Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry is performed and, as a result, the methodology is applied to support the design and construction of waste treatment plants. Finally, the design of the proposed approach is presented including how engineering processes were identified, analyzed and improved through BPM and PLM. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013