Knowledge Retention and Reuse: Using CAD Models as Carriers of Knowledge in Product Development

In order to ensure competitive advantage, manufacturers need to reduce the time and resources spent on development without affecting the quality and performance of the final product. Studies show that designers are likely to change both job and company several times during their career. The loss of experience and expertise implies that new methods for efficient knowledge retention and reuse need to be developed. Results presented in this paper include development and implementation of a previously proposed method suggesting the use of CAD models as carriers of knowledge. The method has been further developed and realised in a three-part demonstrator, each part addressing one aspect of a holistic approach to efficient knowledge retention and reuse. The approach presented here does not require the use of any additional applications during product development and it ensures that the designer has access to necessary information, where and when it is needed. This approach also results in less time spent on documentation, data conversion and information retrieval.