Application of faceted classification to in-service records

Information about the functional or operational performance of the product through life is useful in providing validation and updating of knowledge assumed at the design stage. The collection and exploitation of feedback from experience in service allows engineers to reassess and refine their original assumptions, and this new understanding in turn informs the next design cycle. Current feedback documentation of in-service occurrences (issues, requests, etc.) is found to be inconsistent, thus reducing the ability to reuse operational information for design improvements. We argue that enhanced information representation and organisation not only allows for improved retrieval in general but also provides a suitable basis for analysis and inference of design-induced issues from the information collection. The paper will discuss an approach to information organisation based on faceted classification to enhance retrieval and reuse of in-service information feedback.