Abstract
The environment where Japanese industry has been paid with respect is changing tremendously due to the globalization of economics, where Asian countries are undergoing economical and technical development as well as advancing in information technology. With acceleration of manufacturing bases relocating abroad, industrial hollowing out is happening; hence effort to transfer the technology and the design knowledge of machine design in a company is becoming an important subject. For example, in the design of custom casting product, a designer who is lack of casting knowledge may not be able to produce a good design. In order to obtain a good design and manufacturing, it is necessary to equip the designer and manufacturer with a support system related to casting design or so called, knowledge transfer and creation system. This paper proposes a new computer-aided system for casting design, which is composed of the explicit and tacit knowledge transfer system using synchronised multimedia and the knowledge internalization system using portable virtual environment. This system indicates that our proposed method is useful as a knowlege transfer and creation method for casting design.
