Knowledge Flow: Theory And Method For Product Design

The highly competitive nature of business in a global market economy is forcingcompanies to make continuous efforts to leverage their product innovation in order tomaintain their competitive edge. In a distributed resource environment (DRE), productinnovation involves the intense collaboration of people, teams, organizations and companieswith differing design knowledge. Although there are many definitions of product innovation,one way to think of it is as a modern design process that involves the acquisition andapplication of design knowledge for the development and introduction of new products tomeet evolving requirements from the consumer market. Thus, in support of productinnovation, we discuss modern product design from a knowledge-based and newknowledge-acquired view and argue that modern design for product innovation is a matter ofa design knowledge flow (DKF) process. It is therefore essential to investigate the theoreticalanalysis and engineering application methods of design knowledge flow.The objective of this dissertation is the development of a complete design knowledgeflow theory, method and its related application in terms of supporting product innovation.Based on three key properties of modern design, the theoretical foundation of designknowledge flow, the ontological model for representing and analyzing design knowledge flow,its barriers and drivers, and the strategy and primary prototype of controlling designknowledge flow are studied. Furthermore, this new theory and methodology were applied tothe tribology design of piston-liner systems of internal combustion engines, and positiveresults were obtained. The main study of this dissertation is as follows.1. A comprehensive study of the theoretical framework of design knowledge flow iscarried out. In chapter1, from the viewpoint of the engineering application and theoreticalanalysis, the background and significance of the present study are elucidated. A thoroughreview of state of the art product innovation, knowledge flow research and engineeringdesign methods and methodology is completed. In chapter2, based on the analysis of threekey properties of modern design, we argue that the design process can be understood as aniterative transformation from an initial incomplete knowledge to a consistent formulation ofcomplete knowledge. A framework for the understanding and cognition of design knowledgeflow is proposed.2. Chapter3presents a view for modeling design knowledge flow. The problem withcurrent research on design knowledge flow is discussed. This propagates a model of designknowledge flow, which we present in the form of an ontology of key design concepts, i.e., a PFWSB （purpose-function-working theory-structure-behavior） ontology model. Based onthe model, the process of design knowledge flow is represented and explained, acomprehensive design knowledge representation method is proposed.3. Barriers and enablers in design knowledge flow are investigated in chapters4and5.Chapter4explores enablers and barriers in design knowledge flow with a combination oftheoretical and empirical study, literature review and case investigations. Quantitativeresearch is performed in chapter5. Besides the above mentioned methods, we are looking atmethods from the social sciences and other domains. Based on a60company questionnaire,this chapter analyzes how the barriers affect the application of design knowledge flow ineveryday design projects of these companies. Strategies and suggestions on strengthening thedriver force, as well as reducing the effect of knowledge flow barriers are presented.4. In chapter6, the control strategy of design knowledge flow is presented. Thetraditional Petri net is extended to serve as a tool for the construction and analysis of a designknowledge flow network. A functional framework of a design knowledge flow engine（DKFE） is proposed, to support the control of design knowledge flow in DRE. Keycomponents of DKFE are designed and developed, which include components of knowledgeservice requirement punishment, user enrollment, and requirements discovery. Finally, aprimary prototype of DKFE is developed.5. In chapter7, an engineering project investigation verifies the usability of thecorresponding design knowledge flow theory and methods in the present study anddemonstrates its availability and feasibility in engineering practices.In chapter8, all achievements and contributions in this dissertation are summarized andthe future work put forward.