Improving integrated product design using SWRL rules expression and ontology-based reasoning

In this paper, we propose to deal with the complexity of today's collaborative product design processes using one of the recent and widely used modeling paradigms in industry which is Ontologies. In fact, in addition to their wide expressivity, ontologies provide many reasoning abilities. Therefore, we propose to explore their maturity in dealing with the complexity of nowadays product design processes especially for the expression and execution of product and process design rules. Indeed, integrating, expressing and implementing these specific domains rules are critical issues in nowadays product development processes. The Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is an ontological language based on OWL-DL that allows the expression of these rules. Thus, we propose an overview on the use of the OWL-DL/SWRL approach in industry and we explore the expression and execution of SWRL design rules throughout the development of an industrial case of study in the impression-die forging industry.