A new integration mechanism for knowledge map of complex product development

Currently complex product development involves effective communication and knowledge sharing across multidisciplinary teams and departments, whose processes and product structures are complicated. This paper presents a generalized framework to integrate knowledge maps to reuse development knowledge adequately. Firstly, the knowledge map of complex product development is classified as the concept knowledge map (CKM), the process knowledge map (PKM) and the expert knowledge map (EKM). Based on the classification, the proposed approach integrates the local detailed knowledge map (LDKM) collaboratively designed by different departments into the whole framework knowledge map (WHKM) designed by leading department using the map node mapping method. By establishing the relations among the concept map, the process map and the expert map using knowledge instance mapping, those three kinds of knowledge maps are integrated to a global detailed knowledge integration map which describes the development knowledge from various aspects.