Distributed product knowledge service: model and system framework

Conventional business models focus on providing end products and services regardless of product- or service-related knowledge. Such models are unable to meet customer requirements in a knowledge economy. Therefore, to effectively capture, accumulate, store, and apply knowledge to provide product knowledge service to customers is central to enterprise success. This study has the following three objectives: (i) to propose a novel product knowledge service model based on the product lifecycle and its supply chain, (ii) to design a system framework for product knowledge service, and (iii) to implement the proposed system. The product knowledge service model can be seen as a product knowledge supplier chain based on the integration of the product lifecycle and its supply chain. Based on the knowledge management cycle, software agent technology, and service-oriented architecture, the agent-based knowledge service-oriented system framework is designed to reflect the distributed, flexible, and hierarchical characteristics of the product knowledge service model. Finally, the proposed agent-based knowledge service-oriented system framework is developed and implemented using Unified Modelling Language and Java programming language with the Java Agent Development Framework.