Virtual Space with Enhanced Communication and Knowledge Capabilities

Engineering for development, production, and other product related companyactivities are being organized in virtual systems for lifecycle management of product data.This new age of engineering is a result of the continuous development for step-by-stepmoving of product design, analysis and other production engineering activities fromconventional environments to modeling environments during the eighties and nineties.However, more developments were needed in knowledge based decision assistance in orderto realize modeling of human intent, increasingly complex product structures, and efficientcommunication of product data. In recent years, a great change of engineeringmethodology and software produced program products in knowledge technology andadvanced local and global communication. Group work of engineers is increasinglyorganized around special portals for engineering on the Internet. Although intensiveresearch activities produced outstanding methods in knowledge-based solutions forengineering, these methods have not widespread in the industrial modeling practice. Thispaper attempts to evaluate the possibility that recent communication and knowledgeintensive engineering modeling can be developed into communication and knowledgeintensive virtual space technology. Paper starts with a discussion on integrated applicationof different groups of product modeling techniques. Following this, methods are evaluatedfor the management of product data (PDM). Next section emphasizes aspects, contexts, andintents as primary issues in modeling for relationships in product data and decisions byengineers. Finally, methods for the management of engineering activities for lifecycle ofproducts are summarized, considering communities of engineers around Internet portals.