Automated engineer-to-order systems - a task-oriented approach to enable traceability of design rationale

Abstract

Customisation is a rapidly growing business model that enables companies to deliver products with increased customer value. In this paper, an approach for documentation and knowledge management of systems supporting the design and manufacture of customised products is explored. Due to shifting prerequisite over time, the system encapsulated rules and models have to be updated and refined. Both the system and the solutions generated for a single specification will change over time. This affects product management and the company’s ability to meet legislation and customers’ requirements regarding documentation and traceability, as well as the ability to provide services, maintenance and supply spare parts. This work addresses these challenges and introduces a concept with required functionality for capturing, structuring, searching, retrieving, viewing, and editing a system’s embedded information and knowledge. The concept has been developed and applied to a real case in collaboration with industry.