To develop a complex product efficiently, it is important to provide the appropriate information to the right person within right time. For this, in this paper, the methodology for ERM (Engineering information Relationship Management) is proposed applying the concept of CRM.
In the first step of ERM methodology, requests of reference information are surveyed. In the second step, information system users are clustered into several groups according to the reference information requests. In the third step, the primary descriptors and the secondary descriptors of each cluster are obtained from above clustering result. In the fourth step, the engineering activity tendencies of users belong to each cluster are identified through statistical analysis. Finally, in the ERM operation step, the ERM engine is operated with these results. For example, it allocates the new user who does not belong to any cluster to a proper cluster. Also, it monitors the workflow operation and provides the person in charge of each workflow process with the primary descriptors and the secondary descriptors actively, so as to provide the appropriate information.
Eventually, ERM system can reduce the gap between constructed information and used information. Also, it can promote the interaction among product development processes, engineers and engineering reference information.
