Manufacturing knowledge verification in design support systems

This work contributes to the field of development methodologies for knowledge based design support systems. Specifically, the work identifies the need for a standards-based knowledge verification methodology for manufacturing facility representations. Several development methodologies are proposed in the research literature, offering benefits such as: distributed team working, multi viewpoint representations, and knowledge reuse. These do not however address the subject of verification. The knowledge verification methodology proposed by this research is based on the concept of "ontological commitment", and uses the axioms of a shared foundation ontology to define a series of verification procedures. The PSL ontology (ISO/CD 18629) is identified as being both rigorous enough to support the verification methodology, and relevant to manufacturing environments. The use of these verification procedures within an overall system development methodology is examined, and an understanding of how various categories of manufacturing knowledge (typical to design support systems) maps onto the PSL ontology is developed. This work is also supported by examples and case study material from industrial situations, including: the casting and machining of metallic components. The PSL ontology was found to support the verification of most categories of manufacturing knowledge. It was shown to be particularly suited to process planning representations. Additional concepts and verification procedures were however needed to verify relationships between products and manufacturing processes. A set of representational concepts and verification procedures were developed, and integrated into the proposed knowledge verification methodology.