In the collaborative design environment, there is an increasing demand for information exchange and sharing to reduce lead time and to improve product quality and value. Software and communication technologies can be a relevant approach in this context, using for instance PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) systems. Each product lifecycle development phase generates knowledge, and managing this knowledge can be placed in a closed-loop. In this paper, we present a research in progress that

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... a collaborative architecture based on a multi-agent system which aims to support the knowledge management process in the closed-loop. This is a new strategic approach to manage the product lifecycle information efficiently in a distributed environment. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the use of DOCK ((Design based on Organization, Competence and Knowledge) methodology for the design of our multi-agent system and to demonstrate how to handle intelligent knowledge via a use case study.