Enterprises of the manufacturing industry have to come to precise decisions about technical and operational aspects of the product particularly in the knowledge-intensive, early phases of the product lifecycle because of increasing pressure concerning cost and competition. This can be supported by efficient reuse of the knowledge captured in product data of historical projects. At the same time, intern IT-systems as well as those of the partners in collaborative environments have to be included. Support of knowledge-intensive processes by similarity analysis in product- and process-data in heterogeneous environments is subject of this article.
