Development of a mechanism for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge integration

Compared with relying on the efforts of various enterprises collaborating on product lifecycle activities, such as coordination, communication and control, the ability to effectively share product information and knowledge is more important. Therefore, how to best integrate such heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among various cooperating enterprises has become an extremely important knowledge management subjects associated with collaborative product lifecycle.This study develops a novel mechanism for integrating ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge to effectively integrate the heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among different enterprises during a product’s lifecycle, thereby facilitating sharing of this product knowledge. This study: (i) designed an integration and sharing process for collaborative product lifecycle knowledge, (ii) developed techniques associated with integration of ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, and (iii) implemented an integration and sharing mechanism for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge. In developing techniques associated with integration of ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, which involves establishing a product lifecycle ontology, designing local ontology schema, designing an integration algorithm for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge, and designing a searching method for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge.