User-Centered Assembly Knowledge Documentation: A Graph-Based Visualization Approach

Due to the rapid progress of digitization and the increasing importance of modern information technologies like collaboration platforms companies need to find appropriate ways to overcome the looming qualification lag of their employees. Aggravated by the demographic change, they have to ensure that the knowledge of older, experienced employees is made available to others to prevent its loss in case of retirement. This is especially relevant for small and medium-sized companies where deep personal knowledge is crucial to maintain competitiveness [6]. In this context, it is of paramount importance to enable employees to document their knowledge without interrupting their daily work routine. Knowledge acquisition, distribution and utilization have to be seamlessly integrated into the employees’ daily operations. This paper presents a graph-based approach to visualize assembly knowledge and its prototypical implementation. The resulting knowledge management system has been evaluated within one medium-sized company in the domain of mechanical engineering. These results as well as future developments are discussed at the end of this case study.