A context-based knowledge supply mechanism for product design process

Product design process (PDP) is knowledge-intensive and needs massive knowledge retrieval and reuse. However, existing PDP cannot yet effectively achieve active and right knowledge supply. This paper thus proposes a context-based knowledge supply mechanism for PDP. We first model the context of PDP and extract knowledge requirements to bridge the gap between PDP and knowledge supply process. Then we build the mechanism for active knowledge supply, knowledge requirements mining, and knowledge evaluation during PDP. We implement the mechanism as a knowledge supply engine and present a case study to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness.