The AKM approach to product family design

The AKM approach to holistic design of industrial product families is described, meeting growing technology, business, and customer demands. From a federated product family customized products can be configured, manufactured and supported for life-cycle operations. To achieve this agility components of a Collaborative Product and Process Design methodology are adapted using the Visual Solutions Development methodology. Applying both methodologies in web-platforms customers create federated product family descriptions, representing knowledge families and classes, in what is called an Active Knowledge Architecture. The AKA also contains rule-adaptable structures and knowledge elements configuring conceptual, functional system, and customer product delivery models, working environments and workplaces. The AKM approach gives designers and engineers a language to express and communicate their ideas and collaborate with suppliers and customers, all the time capturing work logic, building the Active Knowledge Architecture contents, and thus erasing the gap between design-time and run-time.