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For many decades now, the focus in information technology to support the product realization process has been on data: its creation, management, and use. A general sense is emerging that data alone is no longer sufficient to support the people involved in this process. In this paper we suggest that it is time to start understanding what Knowledge is necessary to the product realization process and to move towards thinking of and implementing knowledge infrastructures and product knowledge managers. The authors provide some definitions of data, information, and knowledge in general and show how it relates to information and data. Specifically, we highlight the importance of Ca) relationships or patterns in data and information, and Cb) context to understanding knowledge. As part of our definitions, we provide some brief examples of relationships and contexts in the product realization process and show that the manufacturing community has already started to manage knowledge in the product realization process.

As enterprise modelling is being applied at large scale, an emerging challenge is related to managing the variety of business process models and enterprise resource models. This trend in enterprise modelling follows a similar trend in product modelling. This paper reviews to what extent themes from con-® guration management in product modelling can be positioned in enterprise modelling. The principles of progeny, view and domain, hierarchy, life cycle and variants are transferred to enterprise modelling. New insights in enterprise model con® guration are derived from techniques for dealing with product variety, e.g. parametrized product modelling. An example of enterprise model con® guration by parameters is given.Ha n s Wo r t ma n n has been active in the development of logistics control systems since his graduation in 1974. He developed logistics control systems for Philips Components and he wrote a doctoral thesis on shop¯oor control systems in 1981. He is a professor in industrial information systems at Eindhoven University of Technology since 1986. He has been the project manager of the ESPRIT Basic Research Action 3143`Factory of the Future' . He is currently editor in chief of the international journal Computers in Industry. He is actively involved in many research projects together with Baan Company.