Application of ontologies to traceability in the dairy supply chain

Abstract

Systems for tracking products through supply chains range from paper-based records main- tained by producers, processors, and suppliers to sophisticated ICT-based solutions. In addition to supporting product traceability, ICTs may also support data capture, recording, storage, and sharing of traceability attributes on processing, genetics, inputs, disease/pest tracking and mea- surement of environmental variables. A key suc- cess factor for a traceability system is the capa- bility to integrate and share information along the supply chain. ICT represents a tool to over- come integration problems, data fusion and in- formation dissemination. In this paper we illus- trate the application of ontology as a tool to model business processes and rules within an agri- food chain. The business case is represented by the Bovlac project: a scientific and technologic platform to trace fresh cheese production. Keywords: