Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) models are often used during product design. Various interactions between the different models must be managed in a PLM approach for the designed system to be robust and in accordance with defined specifications. To effectively manage engineering changes on the system definition, the dependencies between the different models must be known and managed in a PLM system. A lot of data are exchanged in collaborative design and different problems must be managed in terms of data consistency. We propose a meta-model for knowledge representation integrating maturity concept to support decision making in preliminary collaborative design. A literature survey about existing knowledge models is done before presenting the proposed meta-model of knowledge.