http://cer.sagepub.com/Concurrent Engineering

http://cer.sagepub.com/content/19/2/101The online version of this article can be found at:

 DOI: 10.1177/1063293X11407937

2011 19: 101 originally published online 7 June 2011Concurrent EngineeringJong-Seong Kim, In-Goo Kim and Hoo-Gon Choi

3D Virtual Knowledge Space for Collaboration in New Product Development Processes  

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:Concurrent EngineeringAdditional services and information for    

  http://cer.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:

 

http://cer.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:  

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:  

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:  

http://cer.sagepub.com/content/19/2/101.refs.htmlCitations:  

What is This? 

- Jun 7, 2011 OnlineFirst Version of Record 

- Jun 20, 2011Version of Record >>

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING: Research and Applications

3D Virtual Knowledge Space for Collaborationin New Product Development Processes

Jong-Seong Kim, In-Goo Kim and Hoo-Gon Choi*

Department of Systems Management Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Republic of Korea

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to create a virtual knowledge space, K-SPACE (Knowledge Space), that enables communication and

knowledge sharing between a business level and a plant level for mutual decision-making. Another purpose of a virtual knowledge space is to

enable successful collaboration that ensures better quality while reducing costs and time by checking the task progress of departments

participating in new product development (NPD) under the concurrent engineering (CE) paradigm. The Croquet software development kit is

utilized to develop the knowledge space, which is a small-talk based, object-oriented language. The use of K-SPACE at enterprises that adapt

the CE philosophy for NPD processes is expected to reduce both time and cost through fast, accurate, efficient, and collaborative decision

making for various conflicting issues.

Key Words: virtual knowledge space (K-SPACE), Croquet software, concurrent engineering, collaborative decision making.

1. Introduction

Mass customization has been recognized as anevolving strategic capability that allows firms to producean increasing variety of products or services whilesimultaneously lowering their costs. Mass customizationprovides the basis for a fast response, the creation ofbest value solutions, and a high degree of flexibility toserve new customers and segments with future innova-tions [1]. However, this strategic capability is hard toaccept if a firm develops new products or services underthe traditional serial engineering because of the lowflexibility and slow responding speed to customers’needs. Especially, if some critical conflicts arise indeciding on the design, manufacturing, technology,resources, schedules, etc., the resulting long delays orlost cycle costs make it difficult for a company to satisfyits customer needs [2,3]. Accordingly, it is difficult forthe company to sustain or expand a competitiveadvantage in the market. One solution to resolve thisproblem for mass customization is to adapt theconcurrent engineering (CE) concept, as shown inFigure 1. CE is a paradigm of collaboration amongrelated departments, centered on the design activities inorder to reduce delays and lost cycle costs, which occursin serial engineering [4,5].

The main purpose of collaboration is to respond asquickly as possible to customer needs in terms of qualityand costs. That is, various capabilities such as function-ality, manufacturability, testability, maintainability, andreliability are reviewed thoroughly on the basis of cost-effectiveness before the production ramp-up phase.These capabilities must be fully considered in thedesign process because many technically elegant designsfail due to a higher cost than their perceived value orpoor quality. Especially, manufacturability is a measureof the relative ease of manufacturing a product in termsof cost, quality, lead time, and technical risk [6,7]. Fromthe planning phase to the test and refinement phase,those departments joined to the new product develop-ment (NPD) project must discuss any predictable orunpredictable engineering variables and risks related toquality, performance, and cost decision in order tominimize the engineering change in the productionramp-up phase as the final phase [8,9].

While the paradigm of CE has been recognized as apowerful concept for successful product development,few studies have presented its application in realindustries. A CE-based framework should be establishedfor those participants in an NPD project to resolvevarious problems, estimate possible risks, and makedecisions collaboratively. The framework is a tool thatenables each department to share data, information, andknowledge, to discuss diverse themes or issues related toproduct development, and to make better real-timedecisions. In this article, K-SPACE is introduced as anew CE-based framework to those who need strongcollaboration under CE in NPD. Figure 2 shows an

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.E-mail: hgchoi@skku.edu

Volume 19 Number 2 June 2011 1011063-293X/11/02 0101–10 $10.00/0 DOI: 10.1177/1063293X11407937

� The Author(s), 2011. Reprints and permissions:

http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

example of cross-functional relationships betweenK-SPACE and those participants to product develop-ment. This cross-functional relationship can be constru-cted in real-time for successful product development [3].A knowledge space is a knowledge-use system in

which the space structuralizes both internal knowledgeand external knowledge to make them available for themembers or participants. A member can be a team, aprocess, a department, or any form of interested groups.The knowledge space can be used as a system tofacilitate sharing knowledge and making fast decision-making through collaboration when various conflictsoccur among departments. In this article, Croquetsoftware development kit�, which is a small-talk,language-based, object-oriented program, is used toestablish a 3D virtual space, termed the K-SPACE, as aknowledge space. Croquet� is an open source programthat allows several online users to establish a variety of

new environments in a 2D or 3D structure [10].Croquet� properly enables the communication, colla-boration, data-sharing, and synchronization of users ona network [11,12]. Only a few studies have attempted todevelop a tool, framework, or virtual space thatfacilitates communication and discussion among theusers in real time for successful decision making on thosecritical issues of an NPD project such as masscustomization and risk management under the CEenvironment. The Component Agent Design OrientedModeling (CADOM) project utilizes agent methodologyto assist application integration at the design data level[13]. This methodology functions to facilitate in-housecollaborative engineering. Current conflict managementapproaches in collaborative design focus on conflictdetection, negotiation management, and solution gen-eration phases. An integrated system is required forthe creation, sharing and exchange of design,

Design Verify Produce Test Review

Producibility or manufacturability

Testability

Performance

Quality

Cost

Service

Figure 1. Process of CE.

Figure 2. K-SPACE under CE environment.

102 J.-S. KIM ET AL.

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

manufacturing, operation, and maintenance-relatedinformation. The required system should minimizeredundancies in sharing and exchanging of technicalinformation [14–16].

2. Architecture of K-SPACE

A participant of a CE team or other interest groupcan be a knowledge user, knowledge supplier, orknowledge cooker in K-SPACE whenever changes,conflicts, or communications, need correct decision-making in NPD projects. Also, the current role can bechanged by selecting a traffic signal whenever a newsituation occurs. The participant can search or useexisting data, information, or knowledge stored in otherteams or departments to make the decision. Theparticipant can also provide valuable data, information,or knowledge to help other participants in making theirdecisions. The participant can also solve variousproblems using appropriate methodologies such assoftware, algorithms, and heuristics. Also, each partici-pant can call a conference to discuss the specific issues,to resolve critical problems, and to announce newdecisions related to NPD projects through a trafficsignal. Whenever new results, outputs and outcomes areproduced, they are viewed, presented, shared, andtransferred to related participants in real time. Theseactivities are performed by the simple movement of theparticipant’s avatar which is represented by a rabbit inthis article. The participant is a member of a World andthe rabbit travels in and out using portals. When therabbit enters to a portal with the avatar, the participantcan observe the original World or other Worlds. Thefollowing sections describe the classes composed ofK-SPACE.

2.1 Development and Operation Environmentfor K-SPACE

K-SPACE is developed on a Macintosh� computerwith Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz CPU, NVIDIA GeForce8600M GT, and 4GB RAM. Croquet Consortium(http://www.opencroquet.org) suggests the followingfurther requirements.

Croquet runs on Windows XP, Macintosh OSX, andLinux on a single computer. A three-button mouse ishighly recommended. Also, a LAN or Internetconnection is required to collaborate with other users.A 1GHz processor with 750MB of RAM is areasonable threshold for most purposes. Croquetgraphical performance is quite sensitive to theperformance of the computer’s graphics coprocessor.

The minimum technical requirements are 32MB ofvideo memory (VRAM), with hardware/driver sup-port for stencil buffers and at least 16 bit depth buffer(32 bits better) under OpenGL 1.3 or higher.Croquet also requires to install OpenAL for executingapplications that use spatialized sound.

Because the above requirements for running Croquetare less strict comparatively, K-SPACE can be run onmost computer systems.

2.2 Use Case Diagram of K-SPACE

Figure 3 presents a use case diagram of K-SPACE.A user as knowledge supplier, knowledge user, orknowledge cooker can search for information or knowl-edge, and if necessary, call a meeting or conference toresolve various problems in departments or processesafter a successful login procedure. The user can utilizeeither a traffic signaling method or direct announcementto call a meeting or conference with other users. Theoutcomes from the meetings can be transferred toWorlds in real time, and data or information stored inthe World can be updated. The K-SPACE users can useannotation functions to search and share data, informa-tion, and knowledge with other users. Also, a user canuse a Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server toshare screens of other users who execute variousapplications such as CAD programs.

2.3 Class Diagram of K-SPACE

Figure 4 presents a class diagram that is comprised oftwo different groups of classes: one is for the majorfunctions of K-SPACE and the other is for CroquetSDK. Four major classes of K-SPACE are the KSpaceParticipant class, KSpaceMaster class, KSpaceWorldclass, and KSpaceHarness class. The KSpaceMasterclass is inherited from KSpaceParticipant. KSpaceParticipant works as a client of K-SPACE. KSpaceMaster works as a server to manage the entireK-SPACE, that is, it manages the unique IDs of allobjects, including instances, and enables the applicationto run. Also, it plays a basic role in the configuration ofscreens such as size, screen brightness, position selectionof an object, and object display. KSpaceWorld createsWorlds and portals in each World that acts as a gate tomove from one World to another, and performsrendering for all objects in each World. This class iscomprised of two instances of WorldSky andWorldSpace for mapping various images into 3D virtualspace. WorldSpace creates the area for a user-definedavatar that can move into and out of a World. Thereare 12 Worlds created by KSpaceWorld: KSpaceIntroWorld, CustomerNeedWorld, QualityPlanning World,AssemblyWorld, MaterialControlWorld, Material

3D Virtual Knowledge Space 103

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

HandlingWorld, DataManagementWorld,CommunicationWorld, PurchasingWorld, CostAccountingWorld, MarketingWorld, SalesWorld, andManufacturingProcessWorld. These Worlds are exam-ples of the departments that participate in NPD projectsand have their own objects and functions. Among theseWorlds, the KSpaceIntroWorld class works as a dash-board to show Worlds when a user logs into K-SPACEand to manage the relations among Worlds.KSpaceHarness controlled by KSpaceMaster managesthe flow of all data such as messages among objects.Also, the class handles menu creation and activitycontrol through the KSpaceMenubar class, performsannotation functions to inform the user of issues orproblems that occur in a World, how an issue has beenresolved, or noticed with KSpaceAnnotation, and

finally, controls traffic signal changes on the portalwindows through the KSigMorph class.

3. Flowchart of K-SPACE

Figure 5 shows the flowchart of K-SPACE. Afterconnecting to K-SPACE, the user can see the currentstatus of 12 Worlds through either the boundary coloror the list window color of each World. If the trafficsignal at the top right hand side of the main screen is red(Table 1), the meeting is required to resolve seriousproblems or issues arising in certain Worlds. Themeeting is notified by p2p chat. The attendees gatherat a meeting room, present the issues or problems, andderive suitable decisions. Various software tools can be

Knowledge supplier

User

Knowledge user

Knowledge cooker

KSpace

Login

Write annotation

Change sign

Navigation

Call meeting

Search & view annotation

Spread sign

Make ameeting...

Screen sharing

Make a Vncserver

Update information

<<Include>>

<<Include>>

<<Include>>

<<Include>>

<<Include>>

<<Include>>

Figure 3. K-SPACE use case diagram.

104 J.-S. KIM ET AL.

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

used to obtain the information and data through theVNC.

The result from the meeting is notified to all Worldsby turning on a yellow light. Then, a World withred light before the meeting changes its color to blue.If the traffic signal is green, the related team creates

new information and verifies the information if itaffects other Worlds. If the information does not affectany other World, the color is changed to yellow and thenext step is continued. If the information affectsother teams, the color of the traffic signal is changedto red.

RBF

RBFClient CroquetParicipant

Croquet

CroquetHarnessWithMenu

MenuUI

CroquetMenuProject

KSpace

KSpaceParticipantWorldSpaceVNCPaneIMorph

WorldSky KSpaceWorld

WorldPortal

KSpaceHarness

KSpaceMenubar

KSpaceAnnotation KSpaceSigMorph

KSpaceMaster

KSpaceIntroWorld

CustomerNeedWorld

QualityPlanningWorld

AssemblyWorld

MaterialWorld

MaterialHandlingWorld

DataManagementWorld

CommunicationWorld

PurchaseWorld

CostAccountingWorld

SalesWorld

ManufacturingProcessWorld

Annotation KSigButton

* 4

1

1

1

1..*

1..*

0..*

1

1

Figure 4. Class diagram of K-SPACE.

3D Virtual Knowledge Space 105

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

4. Unique Functions of K-SPACE

4.1 Traffic Signal (KSigMorph)

As described in Section 3, the traffic signal at the topright-hand side of the window changes the boundarycolor of each World. The light also changes the colors ofthe corresponding Worlds specified in the lower part ofthe window. Table 1 shows the definitions of the trafficsignal. The red traffic signal has been turned on when aWorld needs to make a decision by calling for a meetingwith other Worlds. It is noted that each signal is definedfrom left to right at the top right corner and otherrelated figures.

4.2 Knowledge Handling by Worlds

There are four categories of knowledge handling inK-SPACE for collaboration amongWorlds. EachWorld

can freely changed its defined role in real-time as follows:knowledge user (U), knowledge supplier (S), knowledgecooker (C), and finally Free status as shown in Table 2.If a World takes knowledge user after a popup window iscreated, it needs to use the knowledge shared inK-SPACE. If a World clicks knowledge supplier, it canprovide valuable knowledge to other Worlds for betterdecision making. If a World clicks knowledge cooker, itcan provide better knowledge than current knowledgethrough various methods. Those methods include mod-eling for optimization, statistical analysis, upgradedlogics or algorithms, up-to-date information, morepowerful software, and other scientific ways.

4.3 Searching for Internal Data in K-SPACE

Various data types can be read by K-SPACE.Examples of file types that can be read from Croquet

Access toK-SPACE

Checking12 worlds (departments)

traffic signal

Checking the notice

Learning information(text portal, jpg portal,search, viewing)

The notice of the decisions

Changing the trafficsignal of the portal

FinishingK-SPACE

Green

Yellow

Red

Confirmationof information

Does conflict occur?

Is it satisfied with qualityand cost of all teams?

Decision-making

Using information,solving the conflict(search, viewing, cooking)

Creatinga conference-portal

Calling for meeting(P2P chat)

Presentation and confirmation ofthe deduced conflict(VNC, information, search, viewing)

Providing related information toeach team(VNC, information, internet data,search, viewing)

Changing the traffic signalof the conference-portal

Yes

Yes

No

No

Figure 5. Flowchart of K-SPACE.

Table 2. Knowledge handling categories.

Category Definition

Knowledge user Using knowledge in K-SPACEKnowledge supplier Providing insufficient knowledge to

other WorldsKnowledge cooker Using provided knowledge and chan-

ging it to advanced knowledgeFree Status Any changes have not been made

Table 1. Definitions of traffic signals by colors.

Color Definition

Red When a meeting with another team needs to be heldYellow When a decision is made after a meetingGreen When new information is created at a teamBlue When any changes have not been made

106 J.-S. KIM ET AL.

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

include image files, 3D object files, audio files, videofiles, flash files, and web document files. Also, K-SPACE can open jpg, bmp, gif, png, tif, and jpeg filesamong image files, and ase, wrl, vrml, mdl, and tea filesamong 3D object files. Furthermore, mp3, wav, and aiffiles among audio files and mpeg files among video files,swf files among Flash files, html and htm extension filesamong web files can be read by K-SPACE. Figure 6shows an example of opening a data flow diagram as ajpg file for NPD.

4.4 Virtual Network Computing

In this article, VNC is performed to directly linkbetween two different types of systems and K-SPACEfor better collaboration with all Worlds. Also, the VNCallows all users to view the identical, screen-by-screensynchronization for better real-time handling of data orinformation. Figure 7 shows an example screen of amodeling window for SolidWorks� which is a famousCAD program. Those Worlds which want to worktogether for drawing a part can collaborate through theVNC.

4.5 Creating Portals

In order to move from a World to another World, theuser always goes back to the initial default screen fromthe current World. To overcome this inconvenience,K-SPACE has an additional menu called Create Portalsby which the user can move to a new Worldfrom the current one. Figure 8 shows that theMaterialControl World is selected from the currentWorld, which is PurchasingWorld.

4.6 Annotation and Tack Functions

All the events including their contents are recorded byannotation function. This function allows the user to

view the status of each World without checking his/herown World. The tack function plays a role in connectingthe annotation function to the World and minimizingthe window size if the screen becomes complicated dueto too many annotations. Figure 9 shows an example ofAnnotation and tack functions.

4.7 Conference Function

AWorld can call for a discussion meeting in real time.Various issues related to product development can bediscussed through the Invite conference function. All theWorlds invited by a World are specified by red colors.Each invited World has its own IP address, objectnumber, and name. The K-SPACE enriches the CEconcepts by adding this function. Figure 10 shows anexample of the Invited conference function.

Figure 8. Changing the Worlds by create portals.

Figure 7. CAD program called by VNC.Figure 6. Exploring function in K-SPACE.

3D Virtual Knowledge Space 107

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

5. Discussions and Implications

The advantages of K-SPACE, which is a 3D virtualknowledge space, result from the Croquet-based pro-gram and several additional features, such as trafficsignal, VNC, and annotation. The first advantage ofK-SPACE is a function for the user to check the currentissues or problems that need to be solved during productdevelopment in real-time by using the traffic signals(KSigMorph). The second advantage is a knowledgehandling function by which the user can become awareof the roles of each World such as user, supplier, cooker,and free. Third, K-SPACE can link various softwareprograms developed by different venders with itself andcan handle various data formats and file types for bettersharing of data and information. The Croquet programprovides the capability of sharing data and informationconcurrently with all Worlds in 3D space. The additionof several features to the Croquet program enables the

real-time collaboration among Worlds for successfulproduct development. All these advantages reduce theproduct development time. Finally, here is a time-waster situation, however, because the roles of eachWorld are defined for itself in terms of traffic signals andknowledge. In order to reduce this time, a function thatdefines the roles automatically needs to be added toK-SPACE. When more Worlds are added to K-SPACEfor successful product development, a security functionis also needed in order to prevent the major data orknowledge from being leaked.

6. Conclusions and Future Tasks

There are myths and realities in product development.One of them is the enforcement of deadlines to keepdesign release and first-customer-ship on schedule todevelop products quicker. Another is finding out what iswrong and fixing it to achieve better quality. A third ismarking up existing drawings, having a separateengineering group perform custom engineering onindividual products as needed to customize products.Another is that cost reduction efforts lower cost. Thereare, however, corresponding realities to these myths.The corresponding realities to these myths are that thetime-to-market is achieved by the time to stable, trouble-free production and that depends on getting the designright the first time. Better quality is achieved by QualityFunction Deployment (QFD). Mass customizationbecomes effective by concurrent design of versatileproduct families and flexible processes. And finally,cost is lowered when cost is designed into the product,especially by early concept decisions [9]. The frameworkof K-SPACE, is expected to resolve these issues arisingamong Worlds during product development in real-time.

However, further studies are required beforeK-SPACE can become a more reliable tool for CE orother uses. For example, the traffic signal is changedautomatically, rather than by a user, after the status ofeach World is detected in real-time. Also, the overallsystem flexibility should be continuously improved toprevent performance degradation in cases of heavynetwork traffic. Finally, K-SPACE is developed toachieve concurrency and simultaneity as the majorforce of CE in real time. Prasad [17] presents sevenprinciples such as parallel working groups includingoutside trade partners, concurrent processing, transpar-ent communication, quick processing, parallel productdecomposition, concurrent resource scheduling, andminimizing interfaces to achieve the best concurrencyand simultaneity. Even though the current version ofK-SPACE can adapt these principles basically, it shouldbe further developed to meet them completely with abetter information structure to be a model-oriented CEsystem. Those Worlds defined in K-SPACE must be

Figure 9. Annotation and tack.

Figure 10. Invited conference function.

108 J.-S. KIM ET AL.

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

restructured to be an information model-orientedsystem. As Prasad [18] defines, information modelssuch as enterprise model-class, specification model-class,product model-class, process-model-class, and cognitivemodel-class should be adapted to play the central role inproduct realization in K-SPACE.

Acknowledgement

This research was performed with the support of theNational Research Foundation of Korea to specificbasic research (R01-2006-000-10303-0) and the financialsupport of the National Research Foundation of Koreato research about BK21 (2007-0281-200).

References

1. Pitts, R.A. and Lei, D. (2006). Strategic Management –Building and Sustaining Competitive Advantage, Ohio:Thomson South-Western.

2. Kusiak, A. (1993). Concurrent Engineering: Automation,Tool and Techniques, New York, NY: Wiley-Interscience.

3. Singh, N. (1996). System Approach to Computer IntegratedDesign and Manufacturing, New York, NY: John Wiley &Sons.

4. Whitney, D.E. (1988). Manufacturing by Design, HarvardBusiness Review, 66(4): 83–91.

5. Rosenbaltt, A. and Watson, G.F. (1991). ConcurrentEngineering, IEEE Spectrum, 28(7): 22–37.

6. Priest, J.W. and Sanchez, J. (2001). Product Developmentand Design for Manufacturing-A Collaborative Approach toProducibility and Reliability, 2nd edn, New York, NY:Marcel Dekker.

7. Bralla, J.G. (1999). Design for ManufacturabilityHandbook, 2nd edn, New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

8. Adachi, T., Enkawa, T. and Shih, L.C. (1995). AConcurrent Engineering Methodology Using Analogiesto Just-In-Time Concepts, International Journal ofProduction Research, 33(3): 578–609.

9. Anderson, D.M. (2008). Design for Manufacturability &Concurrent Engineering, Cambria, CA: CIM Press.

10. Smith, D.A., Raab, A., Reed, D.P. and Kay, A. (2003).Croquet – A Collaboration System Architecture, In:Proceedings of the 1st International Conference inCreating, Connecting and Collaborating throughComputing (C5’03), Kyoto, Japan, pp. 2–10.

11. Smith, D.A., Raab, A., Reed, D.P. and Kay, A. (2006).Croquet User Manual v.0.01. Available at: http://www.o-pencroquet.org/ (accessed March 25, 2011).

12. McCahill, M.P. and Lombardi, J. (2004). Design for anExtensible Croquet-Based Framework toDeliver a Persistent,Unified, Massively Multi-User, and Self-Organizing VirtualEnvironment, In: Kambayashi, Y., Tanaka, K. and Rose, K.(eds), Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference onCreating, Connecting and Collaborating through Computing(C5’04), Kyoto, Japan, 29–30 January, pp. 71–77.

13. Lombardi, M.M. and Lombardi, J. (2005). CroquetLearning Environments: Extending the Value of CampusLife into the Online Experience, Available at: http://www.opencroquet.org/ (accessed March 25, 2011).

14. Rosenman, M. and Wang, F. (1999). CADOM: AComponent Agent-Based Design-Oriented Model forCollaborative Design, Research in Engineering Design,11(11): 193–205.

15. Xiao, A., Choi, H.J., Kulkarni, R., Allen, J.K., Rosen, D.,Mistree, F. and Feng, S.C. (2001) A Web-BasedDistributed Product Realization Environment, In: ASME2001 Design Engineering Technical Conference, Pittsburgh,PA, 9–12 September, Vol. 123, pp. 183–190.

16. Shu, Y.S., Yoo, S.H., Lee, J.Y. and Kim, H. (2000).Development of A Pc-Based Pre- and Post Processor forRemote Cae, Transactions of the Society of CAD/CAMEngineers, 5(2): 113–121.

17. Prasad, B. (1999). Enabling Principles of Concurrency andSimultaneity in Concurrent Engineering, ArtificialIntelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis andManufacturing, 13: 185–204.

18. Prasad, B. (1996). Concurrent Engineering Fundamentals –Integrated Product and Process Organization, Vol. 1, UpperSaddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, PTR.

Jong-Seong Kim

Jong-Seong Kim is a doc-toral student in Departmentof Systems ManagementEngineering atSungkyunkwan University,Republic of Korea. His cur-rent research interestsinclude CAD/CAM/CAPP,knowledge sharing, systemintegration, risk manage-ment in new product devel-opment process/project.

Also he interests in computational intelligence and itsapplications such as engineering process optimization andrevealing bio-markers of diseases. Mr. Kim received aMSdegree from Department of Systems ManagementEngineering at Sungkyunkwan University, Republic ofKorea. For his master thesis, he performed research ingeometric tolerance measuring method using Krigingmethod for reducing cost and time.

In-Goo kim

In-Goo kim is a researcher inKorea Railroad ResearchInstitute (KRRI), Republicof Korea. His currentresearch interests includeConcurrent Engineering,Systems Engineering,Collaboration, Manufac-turing Strategy, Computa-tional Intelligent, CAD/CAM/CAPP, Factory

3D Virtual Knowledge Space 109

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from

Automation. Mr. Kim received a MS degree fromDepartment of Systems Management Engineering atSungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea. For hismaster thesis, he performed research in 3D virtual space fornew product development.

Hoo-Gon Choi

Dr. Hoo-Gon Choi is aprofessor in Departmentof Systems ManagementEngineering atSungkyunkwan University,Republic of Korea. Hereceived both MS and PhDdegrees from Department ofIndustrial Engineering atIowa State University, USA.His major research areasinclude manufacturing strate-

gies, CAD/CAM/CAPP, product development, and com-putational intelligence.

110 J.-S. KIM ET AL.

at UNIV CALIFORNIA IRVINE on October 16, 2014cer.sagepub.comDownloaded from