Requirements Driven Knowledge System Design for Product Development

This paper describes a methodology for the design and development of a knowledge management (KM) system for manufacturing enterprises based on enterprise architecture methodologies with real industrial case studies. Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (EAF) have been proposed and developed to help enterprises design their information systems based on corporate objectives and user requirements. However, these frameworks have not given sufficient consideration of how to manage enterprise knowledge with the strong needs for better managing knowledge in the new product development process. This project aims to extend the newly developed enterprise architecture frameworks so that not only information, but also enterprise knowledge can be managed. This project focuses on the new product development process, and thus the enterprise in this context is defined as the product development enterprise or organisation. This paper describes the proposed methodology with an industrial investigation including the collaborating company's business process, organizational structure and knowledge user requirements.