Experts' Agreement Support for Distributed Engineering Knowledge Modelling

Abstract

Knowledge sharing among partners in collaborative and concurrent engineering processes is becoming more critical for decision-making in Product Design Engineering (PDE). The approach presented in this article proposes a Fuzzy Logic (FL) based semi-automatic support for reaching agreements in the definition of variable's domain under a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP) modelling process. A negotiation model is proposed, including suggestions about preferred domains for a variable that it is used for more than one expert. Competence of the users involved in the negotiation is measured with a set of developed indexes. A Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) is used to calculate user's indexes and suggestions about the domain are made based on the proposed domains and competence index of the experts. The proposal is included in a Multi-Agent System (MAS) for supporting distributed knowledge modelling. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.