A design plan knowledge acquisition support system for knowledge-based design system

A knowledge representation scheme, called the design plan, is utilized to represent design knowledge. Although many kinds of design knowledge can be represented as design plans, it may be difficult for designers to express their knowledge using the design plan knowledge representation directly. Hence, a framework of a knowledge acquisition support environment of the design plan is proposed based on a supporting mechanism, called the knowledge view. Using a set of knowledge views, designers extract and express their knowledge as pieces of descriptions of a design plan. These pieces of descriptions are unified into a design plan and stored in the design plan knowledge base. Furthermore, an overview of a prototype of a knowledge acquisition support system for the design plan (KASS/DP) is explained, and an example is given