Develop a formal ontology engineering methodology for technical knowledge definition in R&D knowledge management

Abstract

In recent years, many technical disciplines systematically develop standardized ontology that domain experts agree upon and apply to share and annotate information in their fields. The formal ontological representation facilitates R&D knowledge sharing and re-use by both knowledge workers and application systems. In this research, a system engineering approach for creating and managing domain ontology (called ontology engineering, OE) is proposed. The proposed methodology describes an integrated approach in five steps. The approach combining with XML representation schema is adopted to develop a computer-aided ontology engineering (CAOE) tool for effective engineering knowledge construction. The application of the methodology and OE tool application for R&D knowledge management is then investigated through a case study. The case study depicts the ontology engineering for R&D of the monetary bill inspection machine. The machine design knowledge ontology is applied to the related patent search analysis and synthesis to support knowledge management during the machine design and development. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.