Knowledge-Based Repository to Support Engineering Design

Manufacturers are currently shifting their focus from selling products to providing services, hence the product’s designers must increasingly consider life-cycle requirements, in addition to conventional design parameters. To identify possible areas of concern, engineers must consider knowledge gained through the life cycle of similar or related product. However, because of the size and distributed nature of a company’s operation, engineers often do not have access to front-line maintenance data. In addition, the large number of documents generated during the design and operation of a product makes it impractical to manually review all documents thoroughly during a task. This paper presents a knowledge-based document repository demonstrator that is capable of providing such support for the maintainers and designers of jet engines.