Managing distributed manufacturing knowledge through multi-perspective modelling for semantic web applications

Abstract

The development and maintenance of semantic web (SW) means that collaborative manufacturing systems are faced with increasing challenges caused by the growing difficulty in managing distributed manufacturing knowledge. This paper presents a multi-perspective modelling approach to systematically manage distributed manufacturing knowledge on the SW. Considering knowledge engineering as a cyclic and constructive modelling process, a multi-perspective knowledge modelling process is proposed to evolve along knowledge elicitation, engineering modelling, UML-based object modelling, OWL-based ontology modelling, knowledge formalisation and OWL-QL assisted knowledge verification activities. The proposed approach is viewed as a promising knowledge management method that facilitates the implementation of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) in distributed manufacturing for SW applications by integrating the industrial, UML enabled software engineering techniques into recent ontology-based knowledge engineering process. The feasibility of knowledge management through multi-perspective modelling is manifested using the manufacturing ontology for manufacturing electronic connectors.

Keywords:

• distributed manufacturing
• knowledge engineering
• knowledge management
• ontology modelling
• semantic web (SW)
• unified modelling language (UML)
• web ontology language (OWL)

Acknowledgements

The work has been supported by the National High-Tech R&D Program, China (No. 2006AA01Z170, No. 2007AA01Z124), the National Natural Science Foundation, China (No. 60703042), and the Zhejiang Natural Science Foundation of China (No. Y106045, No. Y1080170).