A PLM based approach for supporting collaboration and knowledge management in the medical domain : Application to the treatment process requiring prosthesis implantation

Medical sector is a dynamic domain that requires continuous improvement of its business processes and assistance to the actors involved. This research focuses on the medical treatment process requiring prosthesis implantation. The specificity of such a process is that it makes in connection two lifecyclesbelonging to medical and engineering domains respectively. This implies several collaborative actions between stake holders from heterogeneous disciplines. However, several problems of communication and knowledge sharing may occur because of the variety of semantic used and the specific business practices in each domain. In this context, this PhD work is interested in the potential of knowledge engineering and product lifecycle management approaches to cope with the above problems. To do so, a conceptual framework is proposed for the analysis of links between the disease (medicaldomain) and the prosthesis (engineering domain) lifecycles. Based on this analysis, a semantic ontology model for medical domain is defined as part of a global knowledge-based PLM approach proposition. The application of the proposition is demonstrated through an implementation of useful function in the AUDROS PLM software.