IT-Based Knowledge Management Systems to Support the Design of Product Development Processes

In today’s dynamic business world, the ability to continuously innovate and respond to customers’ needs is fundamental to success. To enable companies to do this a thorough understanding of their internal processes is required. Experiments can provide significant opportunities for companies to generate knowledge about their product development processes. This chapter examines the role of experimentation in designing robust product development processes and the role of information technology in supporting this. It outlines an IT-based knowledge management system to support the creation, transfer, and the use of knowledge amongst engineers in designing and conducting experiments that lead to robust product development processes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the key issues for future research in this area.

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