16/01/2015 - 14H00 - Salle 215 - AIP

"A knowledge representation framework for the design and the evaluation of a product variety"

Résumé :
The product variety design is an essential process in order to deal with the flexibility requested by the mass-customisation. During the product variety stage, customers and expert are involved in the definition of the best variety. Therefore a deep understanding of the links between knowledge coming from the customer domain, product domain and process domain is needed. In this thesis the research focus is on the formalisation of this knowledge. Indeed, even if many efforts are present in the knowledge representation literature, logics are always used to build these links. But studies in linguistics show how logics can lead to ambiguous representations, i.e. more than one interpretation of the same represented object are possible. This ambiguity would make the represented knowledge not appropriate for the product variety design. In this work, we propose a framework for the knowledge representation based on the anti-logicism. Since the samples of anti- logicist systems (e.g. multi-agents, robots) have shown an intelligent behaviour without a representation based on logics, we use the principles the anti-logicism to propose our knowledge representation framework. A knowledge representation framework that allows to connect the customer requirements to the manufacturing process parameters is proposed. The core feature of the models based on this framework is the non-ambiguity. Indeed, each piece of knowledge that composes the model can be interpreted in one unique way. This feature allows the perfect collaboration between customer, product engineers and process engineering during the variety design stage. Once the pieces of knowledge coming from different domains are integrated in one model, the framework explains how to generate alternatives of product-process variety by starting from a given customer set. Finally a criterion to compare the different generated alternatives of product-process variety is proposed. A method to instantiate the framework on a 3D CAD has been developed. Moreover, a prototype that uses the knowledge model along with a mathematical solver to propose the best variety has been developed. The impact of the framework on the selection process and on the design process of a customisable product (i.e. water coil) is tested. The test of the instantiation and the prototype allows to show the advantages and the limit of the proposals.
Jury :
- Rapporteurs : M. Aldanondo, Professeur de l'Ecole des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux
M. Trajanovic, Professeur à University of Nis, Serbie
- Autres membres : Examinateurs :
C. Salinesi, Professeur à l'Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
M. Dassisti, Professeur à Politecnico di Bari, Italie
L. Pierrel, Responsable scientifique de la thèse au sein de l'entreprise Trane