Towards Integration of KBE and PLM
In this paper the issue of integrating knowledge based engineering (KBE) and product lifecycle management (PLM) is addressed at an architectural level. State of the practice and state of the art KBE applications in the literature and in industrial use constituted the empirical base for a categorization of such applications. Two categorizations are presented; one where applications are viewed from the perspective of desired result and one which relates the KBE application to the task it performs and the tool it performs it with. A service oriented PLM architecture has been found to be promising for integrating KBE and PLM. PLM services, whose main role is to retrieve and store data needed or generated by the KBE application, constitute the integration pattern. The KBE applications, which apply PLM services, are in their turn offered as services provided through the PLM environment. Based on these KBE services, a concept called knowledge modules is introduced. The aim of knowledge modules is to map and integrate KBE applications to support or automate engineering activities which today are performed as services between engineering departments such as e.g. complete design verifications or complete configurations.