CREATIVE DESIGN BASED ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING DESIGN.doc

CREATIVE DESIGN BASED ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING DESIGN*Abstract: To support and serve engineering design, creative design based on knowledge management is proposed. The key knowledge factors of creative design are analyzed and discussed, and knowledge extraction tools are utilized to distill the important knowledge to serve for knowledge resource of creative design. The implementation of creative design mode is described and executed, which can promote the intelligent asset of the enterprise and shorten the period of creative design. With this study, design afflatus and conceptual design can be achieved expediently and effectively. Key words: Creative design Engineering design Knowledge management Knowledge sharing0 INTRODUCTIONCreative design that will significantly impact on the future of engineering design, can enhance the core competition of the enterprise, enlarge the reputation of the brand and expand the market share. But knowledge resource has not been employed availably by creative design, and creative methods ,mcl creative afflatus has not been shared, exchanged and reaMrcd in the appropriate way. For example, JAM.', et a! ', doubted that "do these methods for idea generation really aid ideation in engineering design?" Another piobicm is that the enterprise owns abundant knowledge, but it is devoid of the creative knowledge for creative design. Especially, how many disciplines and what breadth and depth of experience'21 are needed in creative design? How do the experts transfer their problem solvers in both their breadth and organization of knowledge as the enterprise creative knowledge? So it's necessary to make use of the right way to deploy the creative method and knowledge resource to support creative design in engineering design. Knowledge management is competent for this role and provides the abundant related knowledge needed in creative design process and the suitable management and utilization of knowledge asset.JAMI, et al'11, indicated that engineering design must not only be novel (unusual, unexpected) but it must also satisfy some intended function(s) to desired specifications (have desired utility). Herein, creativity might be viewed as any process which results in a novel and useful product'31, but much creativity consists of a new combination of existing ideas. Where the existing ideas are present in different people, it requires some kind of interaction to produce the combination'41. So innovation tends to emerge at the 'edges', at the boundaries between domains'21.Nowadays, engineering design is mostly aided by computer, like CAD, Pro/Engineering, etc. It is very important to make the creative design with computer platform. AMABILE'51 provided the computerizing creativity was based on four main components: domain relevant knowledge, creative skill, motivation, and the external work or social environment to contribute to creativity. How to validate and integrate into software workflow products had been studied by TED131 and HELEVEN'61 discussed that dozens of stand-alone software products promoted theories of how to create ideas or improve inventions.BASDEN, et al'71, discussed the construction of knowledge base-assembly and creative design. According to the main-task reactor selection decomposing into sub-tasks structure, a creative task of chemical process based on knowledge-based system is explored by RALPH, et al'81. AHMAD, et al'91, described an original concept for the design arc development of a universal information/knowledge visual iraiioi. tool.'iow to provide the appropriate knowledge to support the creativity or innovation in tagineering design? How to organize t'ie creative individual to design new product in effective manner? Based en these confused question and the pioneer researches p.bout creativity in engineering design and knowledge management, the creative design model based on knowledge management in engineering design is proposed in the paper.The main goal of this work is to adopt the right ways and techniques of knowledge management to serve and aid the creative design in engineering design domain. Section 1 presents the field of research. Section 2 defines the framework of creative design based on knowledge management. Section 3 explores creative design core based on knowledge management and introduces the creative item generation and integration process. Section 4 describes the implementation process of the creative design based on knowledge management, and case study is presented in section 5. Section 6 summaries the conclusion drawn.1ENGINEERING DESIGN AND KNOWLEDGEENGINEERINGEngineering designs must satisfy a set of pre-defined set of specifications, even if these specs sometimes get modified as the designer and client both get a better understanding of the design problem and design space'11. From the point of view of knowledge management, all intelligent activity of engineering design can operate, manage, use and deploy the knowledge bases through knowledge management system (Fig. 1). With knowledge sharing and using interface, engineering designs, likes, creative design, collaborative design, etc, can realize the application and disposal of knowledge in automatic mode, and embody the intelligent characteristics of product design. In the distributed knowledge resource, more than one design activity can be done in the same time with the concurrent thought. Knowledge visualization and interaction interface can nail down the relationship of different kinds of knowledge, and interpret the intrinsic interaction and effect among them. Of course, it can illuminate the design ideation of the designer to promote the knowledge updating in time and to shorten the creative design cycle of engineering design.2FRAMEWORK OF CREATIVE DESIGN BASEDON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENTFig. 2 presents the framework of creative design module based on knowledge management technologies. The related knowledge is the raw material of creative design and connects with one another by the flow of creative design and knowledge map interactive platform.2.1Creative design processCreative design of engineering design is a systemic activity which is planned in advance to realize the goal of the enterprise. The whole design process keeps to the approach and principle of the general design: market investigation, product definition, conceptual design and routine design, then produces design data and files.Conceptual design is the key of the creative design process, and the design embodies the new idea, advanced technology and future trend. The product function conceptualization, conceptual visualization and conceptual commercialization are the essential and gradual approach in conceptual design phase. Design concept corresponds with function analysis, market orientation, object clients and price index, which are shown in the document and sketch form. Then the sketch and the mode are discussed and affirmed by the expert and managers, and the result acts as the decision-making of the product design. Industrial designer, configuration designer and market salesperson analyze and discuss the concept product feasibility and manoeuvrability. The creative design model, principle innovation and technical innovation are related with the experience and technical knowledge which is stored in the knowledge-bases.2.2Creative knowledge resourceKnowledge resource includes the different knowledge bases which are the material of the design and innovation in Fig. 2. Expertise knowledge means the domain knowledge which is background knowledge and technical knowledge of the creative design, and the knowledge base is constructed by the domain experts and technicians. Herein, the domain knowledge refers the professional knowledge of the industry, for example, the related knowledge of an electric product. Individual knowledge is a kind of important knowledge resource which plays the key role in intelligence asset of the enterprise, so the capability of individual knowledge base shows the enterprise's potential creative competence. And the individual knowledge is related with the experience, understanding, cognition and background'10', etc. ; TRIZ rules base stores the core knowledge of theory of inventive I problem solving, like inventive principles, functional , substance-field standard solution rules and TRIZ standard techniques1"1. The successful and efficient rules are also stored in TRIZ rules base. Physical contradictions and technical : contradiction are the main part in contradiction knowledge base, of course, which includes algorithm for inventive problem solving (ARIZ)"2'. Solving principle knowledge indicates the contradiction matrix and 40 inventive principles. Separation principle is added in this knowledge base, which is useful to i create and solve the problem and the feasible methods, and related ; knowledge is stored in it similarly.2.3 Knowledge managementThe role of knowledge management in the model is the bridge ; concerned with knowledge resource and creative design process, and acts me tie of designer and knowledge resource interaction. Knowledge , update provides the knowledge renewing mechanism to guarantee the new knowledge can be added in the knowled base in time.Knowledge extraction acts as a significant role in the ; acquirement process of knowledge resources, and offering the : data, information and knowledge as the raw material for creative i design In the creative design process, the different task matches ' with iv. appropriate method which is required in the concentrated, structural and opening mode possibly, likes, the interview, l protocol analysis, laddering method, conception sorting, repertory grid and rule inducing technique.Knowledge sharing goes with the whole creative design, which is the headspring of the afflatus and creativity, and the domain experts, designers, consultants and administrators can discuss, rap off and share in the successful cases, experiences and ; lessons etc through knowledge sharing platform. Knowledge sharing which is the systemic process, exists in every stage of creative design, in the conceptual design, creative impetus and idea interaction between designer and originators who maybe not in the enterprise.Knowledge map is a navigation map or index catalog of expertise knowledge113', and the guidance of the knowledge distributing, knowledge relevance, and the relationship between knowledge and creative designer, which is the main tool to represent the connection of the tacit knowledge and the experts. Designers can learn, communicate, discuss and cooperate with each other, which can guarantee the concentration of creative design idea, method and technique in time. Consequently, creative design process is direct, pellucid and visual to all kinds of designer with knowledge map.2.4 Creative design coreCreative design is focused on the conceptual design in engineering design. In fact, creative design includes many aspects, the goal ascertaining, the strategy programming, the model choice, principles and technical innovation. Creative idea and afflatus expresses new value trend and product functions which need different knowledge to support, and knowledge management tools will afford the expedient, direct and effective technical service. The relevant research will be described in section 4 at length.3 CREATIVE DESIGN CORE BASED ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND CREATIVE ITEM GENERATION AND INTEGRATION PROCESS3.1 Creative design goalCreative design goal solves what the design is for, which accords with the goal of enterprise development. In view of the different target in different developing phase of the enterprise, the creative design goal is divided into long-term, medium-term and short-term creative targets. The long-term creative design goal serves the long-range plans of the enterprise based on the detailed market investigation and decision-making knowledge-base, which aims to the future of the enterprise and the status in the industry. The designer goal need acquire the enterprise goal with knowledge extraction tools, like, laddering method, and distil the core thoughts or afflatus of the individual designer with the interview. This is ascertained by the session layer meeting which the leadership, the domain experts and senior consultants will attend to. The long-term creative design needs the devotion of abundant capital and human resource, and the goal leads the developmental direction and new fashion. On the contrary, the medium-term and short-term creative goals match the near future strategy of the enterprise, and which mainly consider the substitute of the products in the market at present and the new products of the adversary.3.2Creative design strategyCreative design strategy corresponds with creative design goal, and the long-term, medium-term and short-term creative design strategy nail down the creative orientation, methods and executing approaches according with different creative design goal. With the existing knowledge bases, the designers use the knowledge operation tools, like quire and browse, to get the similar successful creative design products and schemes for forecasting the feasibility of the project, the design periods of the creative design product, ths cost budget and the value evaluation of the creative product. Of course, the forecast is impossibly precise, but knowledge sharing and knowledge map provide the coiiinmn .cation, discussion, comparison and feedback platform to save; amative design for the designers. At the same time, knowledge interpreting mechanism will push the relative knowledge items for the designer understanding the cultural connotation of the enterprise to aid establishment of creative design strategy. Otherwise, the creative product will not meet the unavoidable matters in future.3.3Creative design modelCreative design model is the sub-part of the conceptual design, which covers the function creative model, technical creative model and bran-new creative design model here. Knowledge interpreting mechanism and knowledge sharing will sort out, match and recommend the related scheme or inspiring creative methods according to the different design model from creative case base, etc. Different creative design model matches the different creative mechanism in knowledge base system. The creative model and the prototype design serve the goal of product planning of the enterprise, and the inspiring creation methods are employed to speedup the establishment of the creative model, such as, the brainstorming'141, characteristic and disadvantage list, 5W2H (why, what, where, who, when, how, how much), and the combination (like the compounding of the material and component, the technology and operational method, and the appearance and function, etc).3.4