Ontologia PLM project: Development and preliminary results

Abstract

A great difficulty regarding the management of information systems is the fact that much of the knowledge available inside the organizations only can be found in a nonstructured form. As a consequence, one of the major problems faced by the industrial segment, including capital goods industries, is the low degree of interoperability (capacity that a system presents of sharing and interchanging information and applications). This problem is even more serious when considering the whole product lifecycle, where several pieces of software are involved to allow the organization of PLM (Product Lifecycle Management). One of the most promising approaches to address these issues is the structuring of formal ontologies. This paper presents the preliminary development of an ontology (called Ontologia PLM Project), that aims to ensure a transparent interoperability between systems used for the interchange of information through the whole product lifecycle. This project is focused on the capital goods industry and encompasses eight domains of application (DA). A group of specialists is responsible for analysing each DA. At the moment, the DA's have defined the set of related classes and are involved in inserting properties and restrictions. Finally, a small set of axioms has been implemented allowing verifying the preliminary behaviour of the proposed ontology. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.