Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE)

In today’s dynamic market place, customer needs and specifications change often and as a result, rapid response becomes an issue. Design-to-delivery cycle time is rapidly collapsing along with prices & margins, thus businesses are forced to leverage seamless technology solutions to stay competitive. Version control of changes and mapping them across from design to manufacturing is where Information Technology can be used innovatively to gain competitive advantage.

 Knowledge-Based Engineering compliments traditional CAE systems to provide a new strategic approach for improving effectiveness in manufacturing. With CAD systems, engineers define part geometry and document the result of the design process with annotated drawings. KBE systems complement traditional CAD systems by adding the engineering knowledge that drives not only the product design process but also produce other information besides drawings, such as Bills of Material, cost analysis, process plans, MRP inputs, QA procedure and user-defined reports.

A KBE solution models the complete design process, integrating analysis and manufacturing considerations with design geometry. It can be defined as an engineering method in which knowledge about the product and the techniques used to design, analyze and manufacture a product are stored as a series of “rules.” A generic design is then created that can then be modified to meet the requirements of the input data, based on the rules that have been developed. Thus, minor product change requirements can be met in a small fraction of the time traditional solutions would require.