An approach to support SMEs in manufacturing knowledge organization

Different kinds of technological data are available in manufacturing enterprises, concerning the resources availableaswellastheprocessesandthecomponentsneeded for the production of specific products. These data usually are not stored in a centralized knowledge management system, thus one of the main problem of managers, especially in small enterprises, is to efficiently manage their data and reuse the knowledge deriving from previous products when anewproducthastobeproduced.Startingformtheanalysis of the technological data available in manufacturing enterprises, we defined a formal model as set of matrices; their analysisallowsthedefinitionofadatamodeltostructurethe technological information. The model is at the basis of the proposedsystem,calledmanufacturingknowledgeorganization(MAKO)tosupportmanagersinstructuringandreusing the technological knowledge available in their enterprise. A prototype of the MAKO system was implemented by using open-source software and its potentialities are shown in a case study.