Metadata and ontologies for mechanical objects' design and manufacturing

In this chapter a conceptual and computational framework for the development of Knowledge-Based Engineering tools is presented. The framework is based on the adoption of ontologies and metadata as effective methods to represent the different levels of competence owned by expert designers of complex mechanical objects. After a brief review of literature on this topic, the Chapter gives a complete overview of the approach, explaining how it can be used to represent functional, procedural and experiential knowledge necessary to accomplish a mechanical object design task. Moreover, the Chapter describes a framework application case study, namely the IDS project, to support expert designers working for Fontana Pietro SpA, an Italian enterprise leader in the development of dies for automotive industry.