An artificial intelligence approach to support knowledge management on the selection of creativity and innovation techniques
Journal of Knowledge Management
ISSN: 1367-3270
Article publication date: 28 May 2020
Issue publication date: 17 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
Creativity is an important skill for design teams to reach new and useful solutions. Designers often use one or more of creativity and innovation techniques (CITs) to achieve the desired creative potential during new product development (NPD). The selection of adequate CITs requires considerable expertise, given the multiple application contexts and the extensive number of techniques available. The purpose of this study is to present a creativity support system able to manage this amount of information and provide valuable knowledge to improve NPD.
Design/methodology/approach
This study presents a knowledge-based system prototype using artificial intelligence (AI) to support knowledge management on the selection of CITs for design. CITs assertion is modelled through a double inference process using five categories, correlating over 500 different entry scenarios to 24 implemented CITs. The techniques are classified according to: design stage, innovation focus, team relationship, execution method and difficult of use. Prototype outputs explanations on the inference process and chosen techniques information.
Findings
To demonstrate the system scope, two opposite design cases are presented. The system was validated by experts in knowledge management and mechanical engineering design. The validation process demonstrates relevance of the approach and improvement directions for future developments.
Originality/value
Though literature contains toolkits and taxonomy for CITs, no work applies AI to identify design scenarios, select best CITs and instruct about their use. Validators reported to know less than half of the available techniques, showing a clear knowledge gap among design experts.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
To NEDIP-UFSC (Integrated Product Development Nucleus) for its facilities and to CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development) for its financial support. To engineers Guilherme Loureiro, Rogério Lambert, Willian Rochadel and Lucas Abdalla for their comprehensive knowledge-based validation feedback.
Citation
Botega, L.F.d.C. and da Silva, J.C. (2020), "An artificial intelligence approach to support knowledge management on the selection of creativity and innovation techniques", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 1107-1130. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-10-2019-0559
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited