On the Management of Sharing Design, Knowledge

This paper presents the approach and results of a research project that develops an environment for sharing design knowledge. The project implements a design modelling approach that allows designers to capture design concepts into formally defined typologies. With these, designers can build flexible design models and have full control over definitions and structures used to represent design concepts. The presented research project uses this dynamic modelling approach in the development of Design Knowledge Servers that function in a network to provide a distributed multi-user environment for sharing design knowledge. Such a network serves the requirements of collaborative design and is useful for other purposes, such as publication of formalised product datasheets. The paper briefly provides the background of the knowledge modelling approach underlying this project and describes the design and implementation issues of the Design Knowledge Servers and the services they provide