Knowledge sharing between design and manufacture

The aim of this research is to develop a representation method that allows knowledge to be readily shared between collaborating systems (agents) in a design/manufacturing environment. Improved mechanisms for interpreting the terms used to describe knowledge across system boundaries are proposed and tested. The method is also capable of handling complex product designs and realistic manufacturing scenarios involving several parties. This is achieved using an agent-architecture to simulate the effects of individual manufacturing facilities (e.g. machine tools and foundries) on product features. It is hypothesised that knowledge sharing between such agents can be enhanced by integrating common product and manufacturing information models with a shared ontology, and that the shared ontology can be based largely on The Process Specification Language (PSL).