Knowledge representation and mapping for collaborative in manufacturing supply chain based on OWL and UML

Abstract

Through the comparison analysis of the similarity between UML and OWL based on the OWL syntax elements with reference to OWL Full language, the OWL structure could be described with existing UML language through the direct mapping and the extended mapping. So, the mapping of ontology model between OWL and UML could be realized and the automatic conversion could be processed by the extensible stylesheet language transformation. Further, this study proposed a UML model of collaborative members in manufacturing supply chain and generated the corresponding ontology model by the mapping conversion; with the help of Pellet and Protege the syntax check and reasoning and validation were tested. The study shows that the method of automatic conversion from the UML class diagram to the OWL file that was proposed in this study is feasible and the result is accurate. In the field of ontology modeling, by the rich expression function of object-oriented graphics in UML model, the combination of UML language and OWL language with their advantages could effectively develop the ontology for the semantic web. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.