Ontological approach for organisational knowledge re-use in product developing environments

This paper discusses the theoretical aspects and applications of a novel methodology for exploiting a knowledge management editor tool to structure organisational knowledge. An organisational knowledge framework for capturing and representing “manufacturing know-how” has been developed using an ontological approach. The delivery mechanism for the application of the captured knowledge makes extensive use of web-based technologies. The captured knowledge is converted into an industry-standard format and then shared within a web-centric, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) environment. The integrated knowledge encapsulation and knowledge distribution and management approach is used to support collaborative and distributed product development global basis.