Knowledge representation for product and processes development planning in collaborative environments

Abstract

Efficiency in the management of integrated product and processes development is a basic requisite to guarantee competitiveness and success for manufacturing companies. This means that operational management of activities and human and material resources is extremely important, especially in virtual OKP (one-of-a-kind production) systems, and must cover related aspects of their capabilities and social character as well as assignment criteria. In this context, and to facilitate collaborative resources management, an ontology focused on resources and capabilities is proposed in this work. This ontology supports the necessary knowledge for generic and collaborative process planning, providing a shared common semantic for all the members of the virtual company. This work differs from other proposed ontologies in the area of process planning where the resources considered are all those elements that participate in the execution of the different activity types involved in this wide and complex process. The ontology directly covers the shared, social nature of the resources, the agentive behaviour of many of them and a characterisation of their capabilities, thus providing specific solutions to the needs of the collaborative integrated development of products, processes and resources (CIDP2R) process.