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Top1. Introduction
Over the last decades, organizations have faced significant challenges because of volatile market demand, rising product variability, process complexity, individual customer demands, and the specialization of competencies in the product development process (PDP) (Ahmed et al., 2019; Arromba et al., 2020). These frequent and unpredictable market changes driven by the fourth industrial revolution have transformed the way we develop, interact, connect, and do business across the world (Birkel and Müller 2021). In this dynamic and complex environment, digital agility has become a critical dynamic capability for organizations, enabling them to respond quickly and effectively to changes in the digital landscape (Gong & Ribiere, 2023; Grover, 2022). Moreover, with the emergence of concurrent engineering and the use of IoT tools, even if designers intend to design for simplicity, the work they must complete is intrinsically difficult (Cherrafi et al., 2022). Thus, complexity has increased continuously, leading design project management to shift from a sequential to an iterative, holonic, and concurrent model with a lifecycle perspective (Benabdellah, Benghabrit, & Bouhaddou, 2020).
Designing a composite (complex) product that considers cost, assembly, security, functionality, serviceability, reliability, quality, and environmental challenges throughout the product lifecycle has special features that directly impact how knowledge is used (Benabdellah et al., 2021a). This complexity can be handled by implementing Design for X (DFX) methodologies, which allow businesses to examine the influence of design decisions on different elements such as cost, safety, quality, agility, sustainability, and manufacturing (Benabdellah et al., 2019; Chaouni Benabdellah et al., 2021). Besides, achieving the balance that promotes social and environmental sustainability requires flexibility, agility, willingness to take risks, careful planning, effective implementation, and continuous improvement to be able to adapt to changes in the market, technology, and other environmental factors (Awan et al. 2021; Du et al. 2020). This is where dynamic capabilities come into play. More clearly, dynamic capabilities are a collection of skills, procedures, and practices that enable businesses to respond quickly and efficiently to changes and uncertainties (Al-Shami and Rashid 2022; Zekhnini et al. 2021). Therefore, in a complex and volatile market demand, dynamic capabilities such as circular economy (CE) and digital agility are crucial for developing innovative products that are flexible, adaptable, and satisfy changing consumer and market demands (Al-Shami & Rashid, 2022; Salmela et al., 2022). In fact, by embracing the circular economy approach, organizations can ensure resource efficiency and minimize waste, while digital agility empowers them to swiftly navigate the digital landscape, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and overcome potential hurdles. In addition to that, as the number of diverse actors participating in the PDP grows, the need to reduce confusion, share information, competencies, and resources, and acquire the correct information in the right format at the right time in the composite industry become crucial (Benabdellah, Benghabrit, Bouhaddou, et al., 2020; Benabdellah et al., 2021a). Consequently, it becomes imperative to embrace knowledge management practices (Benabdellah et al., 2021b; Martins et al., 2019; Zbuchea et al., 2019) . In fact, Knowledge management supports digital agility and dynamic capabilities by facilitating the capture, sharing, and utilization of knowledge and insights (Benabdellah et al., 2021b). Therefore, effective knowledge management practices enhance decision-making, problem-solving, and continuous improvement in product development (Martins et al., 2019). To do so, ontologies emerge as a relevant technique for describing the required knowledge to support flexibility, interoperability, decision-making, modularity, optimal solution, and lift ambiguity of PDP systems with a connection with Semantic Web (Benabdellah et al., 2021a; Kendall & McGuinness, 2019; Klašnja-Milićević et al., 2017; Mohammed et al., 2021). Thus, by leveraging digital agility, dynamic capabilities, Design for X techniques and knowledge management practices (ontologies), organizations can successfully navigate volatile market conditions and adapt their product development processes to meet changing requirements according to a specific feature X.