Knowledge Management in Collaborative Product Design-An Activity Theory Perspective

Collaborative product design is nowadays a trend of advanced manufacturing technology. Collaborative product design is a knowledge-intensive activity; knowledge management in collaborative product design has been focused. Existing literatues maily focus on knowledge management systems in collaborative design, other aspects of design activity is rarely paid attention to. The framework of activity system interaction is applied to design business scenario analysis. Furthermore, knowledge management in collaborative product design is analyzed from six perspectives, which are subject, object, community, tools, rules and division of labor, of Activity Theory. And suggestions for promoting knowledge sharing and transformation are proposed to imporve knowledge management in collaborative product design.