Managing knowledge within the manufacturing enterprise: an overview <s> Manufacturing in the 21 <s> AbstractThe manufacturing model is an information model that describes the manufacturing capability of a particular enterprise. To achieve general applicability, the model consists of the entities that are relevant and important for any type of manufacturing firm, namely: manufacturing resources (e.g. machines, tools, operators, etc.), manufacturing processes (e.g. machining processes, assembly, etc.) and manufacturing strategies (e.g. how these resources are organized and used). The manufacturing model is a four-level model based on a de facto standard (i.e. factory, shop, cell, station) that represents the functionality of the manufacturing facility of any firm. The manufacturing model concept presented in this paper represents the manufacturing capability of a high-performance flexible manufacturing facility. <s> BIB001 </s> Managing knowledge within the manufacturing enterprise: an overview <s> Manufacturing in the 21 <s> Information integration enables delivery of the right information to the right user in a timely manner giving manufacturers a competitive edge in today’s global manufacturing market. However, as enterprise information is usually aggregated from a variety of heterogeneous information sources, without using an adequate integration framework it is difficult to extract pertinent information and apply current knowledge to assessing production situations and making informed decisions. This paper investigates a method of facilitating knowledge synthesis in a distributed computing environment. A formal model of domain ontology and knowledge base is presented, which aims at providing a vehicle for representing information and knowledge using a common shared semantics in a given application domain. As a result, a common knowledge representation based architecture is proposed, creating a foundation for establishing a systematic approach for ease of knowledge synthesis in a manufacturing environment <s> BIB002
st Century is a major technological challenge that must be tackled on several fronts. Engineering is ever advancing, and products are becoming more highly integrated and complex. The new manufacturing enterprise is knowledge intensive and globally distributed. It must collaborate closely with a range of partners across geographical and technological boundaries. The manufacturing enterprise has been the focus of a significant body of research into the capture, representation, sharing and application of knowledge. This paper aims to characterise manufacturing knowledge research by identifying, classifying and analysing a targeted selection of research papers. This analysis seeks to highlight current trends and identify areas for future research. Manufacturing is considered from an enterprise perspective BIB002 BIB001 . The enterprise view encompasses a range of operations within the manufacturing business, including: customer requirements capture, product design, manufacturing engineering, production scheduling and production control. These areas must communicate with one another across the enterprise, and each has its own particular knowledge and information requirements. The development of information and knowledge models to support these activities represents one research stream. A closely related research area is knowledge management, which provides solutions to less specific knowledge and information management challenges such as storing and retrieving information, and finding relevant expertise through documents and personnel. Another related area is intelligent systems (also expert systems and knowledge based engineering), which provide solutions to specific challenges in the manufacturing domain, such as optimising a component for injection moulding or assessing a sheet metal part for manufacturability. Figure 1 provides a high level view of manufacturing knowledge systems, tools and supporting structures. The central section of the figure shows a selection of key enterprise functions relating to product development and production. The top section shows enterprise level support: knowledge management and knowledge sharing applications. Process models also provide support at the enterprise level. Two types of function-level systems are shown: vertical methods, which target a specific functional domain, and horizontal methods, which support the integration across two or more domains. An example of a horizontal method is a system to create a manufacturing process plan from a geometric model of a product or component. An example of a vertical method is a system to optimise a production schedule based on current machine loading. At the bottom of the figure, knowledge and information models comprise the supporting structures that form the basis of the function level systems. At this level, the syntax and semantics as well as the structure and relationships between terms are defined. A general objective at this level is to provide structures that support communication across the various enterprise functions. The adoption of standard representations for the various systems at this level supports inter-and intraenterprise communication by ensuring the various partners can understand the content and interface with the various systems.