In multi-domain product development organizations, there is a continuous need to transfer captured knowledge between engineers to enable better design decisions in the future. The objective of this paper is to evaluate how engineering knowledge can be captured, disseminated and (re)used by applying a knowledge reuse tool entitled Engineering Checksheet (ECS). The tool was introduced in 2012 and this evaluation has been performed over the 2017–2018 period. This case study focused on codified knowledge in incremental product development with a high reuse potential both in and over time. The evaluation draws conclusions from the perspectives of the knowledge workers (the engineers), knowledge owners and knowledge managers. The study concludes that the ECS has been found to be valuable in enabling a timely understanding of technological concepts related to low level engineering tasks in the product development process. Hence, this enables knowledge flow and, in particular, reuse among inexperienced engineers, as well as providing quick and accurate quality control for experienced engineers. The findings regarding knowledge ownership and management relate to the need for clearly defining a knowledge owner structure in which communities of practice take responsibility for empowering engineers to use ECS and as knowledge evolves managing updates to the ECS.

This paper presents CoreALMlib, an $\mathscr{ALM}$ library of commonsense knowledge about dynamic domains. The library was obtained by translating part of the Component Library (CLib) into the modular action language $\mathscr{ALM}$. CLib consists of general reusable and composable commonsense concepts, selected based on a thorough study of ontological and lexical resources. Our translation targets CLibstates (i.e., fluents) and actions. The resulting $\mathscr{ALM}$ library contains the descriptions of 123 action classes grouped into 43 reusable modules that are organized into a hierarchy. It is made available online and of interest to researchers in the action language, answer-set programming, and natural language understanding communities. We believe that our translation has two main advantages over its CLib counterpart: (i) it specifies axioms about actions in a more elaboration tolerant and readable way, and (ii) it can be seamlessly integrated with ASP reasoning algorithms (e.g., for planning and postdiction). In contrast, axioms are described in CLib using STRIPS-like operators, and CLib's inference engine cannot handle planning nor postdiction.

Reuse has long been a major goal of the knowledge engineering community. We present a case study of the reuse of constraint knowledge acquired for one problem solver, by two further problem solvers. For our analysis, we chose a well-known benchmark knowledge base (KB) system written in CLIPS, which was based on the propose and revise problem-solving method and which had a lift/elevator KB. The KB contained four components, including constraints and data tables, expressed in an ontology that reflects the propose and revise task structure. Sufficient trial data was extracted manually to demonstrate the approach on two alternative problem solvers: a spreadsheet (Excel) and a constraint logic solver (ECLiPSe). The next phase was to implement ExtrAKTor, which automated the process for the whole KB. Each KB that is processed results in a working system that is able to solve the corresponding configuration task (and not only for elevators). This is in contrast to earlier work, which produced abstract formulations of the problem-solving methods but which were unable to perform reuse of actual KBs. We subsequently used the ECLiPSe solver on some more demanding vertical transport configuration tasks. We found that we had to use a little-known propagation technique described by Le Provost and Wallace (1991). Further, our techniques did not use any heuristic “fix”’ information, yet we successfully dealt with a “thrashing” problem that had been a key issue in the original vertical transit work. Consequently, we believe we have developed a widely usable approach for solving this class of parametric design problem, by applying novel constraint-based problem solvers to data and formulae stored in existing KBs.

The application of truth maintenance techniques to the component selection phase of the engineering design process is described. The aims of the research include the selection of components that most closely match a set of requirements which include fluid characteristics, economic constraints, and company policies or preferences. In addition, we consider the storage and retrieval of requirement sets and corresponding component selections. The benefits of maintaining temporal knowledge are twofold: to enhance performance through reuse when new requirement sets are similar to previous sets, and to re-assess selections in the light of changes over time, for example, to the set of available components, to company policy, or, perhaps, to national safety regulations.

We propose a temporal truth maintenance system (TTMS) to support this management of selection knowledge over time.

Managing and reusing knowledge in architecture, engineering, and construction firms can lead to greater competitive advantage, improved designs, and more effective management of constructed facilities. However, reuse often fails because knowledge is not captured; it is captured out of context, rendering it not reusable; or there are no formal mechanisms for finding and retrieving reusable knowledge. This paper presents ongoing research on design knowledge reuse that introduces the notion of knowledge in context from a corporate perspective. We argue that in order for knowledge to be reusable, the user should be able to see the rich context in which this knowledge was originally created and interact with it. We call a repository of such knowledge in context the corporate memory. We describe empirical observations of designers reusing knowledge from their personal design experiences. Based on these observations, we formalize two key activities in the process of knowledge reuse from a corporate repository: finding reusable items and understanding these items in context. We formalize six degrees of exploration that lead to understanding. We describe a prototype system, CoMem, that supports these activities. CoMem is distinguished from the document-centric state of practice solutions by its approach of “overview first, zoom and filter, and then details on demand.” In order to accomplish this approach we propose three metaphors: corporate map, fisheye lens, and storyteller. These metaphors and their implementation in CoMem are illustrated using an industry scenario.