COUPLING ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE WITH PRODUCT DESIGN KNOWLEDGE BY THE MEANS OF MULTIPLE VIEW PRODUCT MODEL

Product design involves a multitude of actors who have complementary knowledge and responsibility about the product under development. Coupling together their views-points, particularly these of product designers and engineering designers in the upstream phases of the design, has the objectives to make the collaboration easier and to improve the product from both of their expertises. The Product/Process multi-view model is a collaborative tool which supports engineering designers during product development processes. It allows the structuring and tracing of relative knowledge of engineering designers on the product. We make the assumption that Product/Process multi-view model could also be used to create relationships with the product designer's representation. The paper deals with this product model and illustrates the possible connection between engineering knowledge and product design knowledge.