An ontology framework for developing platform-independent knowledge-based engineering systems in the aerospace industry

This paper presents the development of a novel knowledge-based engineering (KBE) framework for implementing platform-independent knowledge-enabled product design systems within the aerospace industry. The aim of the KBE framework is to strengthen the structure, reuse and portability of knowledge consumed within KBE systems in view of supporting the cost-effective and long-term preservation of knowledge within such systems. The proposed KBE framework uses an ontology-based approach for semantic knowledge management and adopts a model-driven architecture style from the software engineering discipline. Its phases are mainly (1) Capture knowledge required for KBE system; (2) Ontology model construct of KBE system; (3) Platform-independent model (PIM) technology selection and implementation and (4) Integration of PIM KBE knowledge with computer-aided design system. A rigorous methodology is employed which is comprised of five qualitative phases namely, requirement analysis for the KBE framework, identifying software and ontological engineering elements, integration of both elements, proof of concept prototype demonstrator and finally experts validation. A case study investigating four primitive three-dimensional geometry shapes is used to quantify the applicability of the KBE framework in the aerospace industry. Additionally, experts within the aerospace and software engineering sector validated the strengths/benefits and limitations of the KBE framework. The major benefits of the developed approach are in the reduction of man-hours required for developing KBE systems within the aerospace industry and the maintainability and abstraction of the knowledge required for developing KBE systems. This approach strengthens knowledge reuse and eliminates platform-specific approaches to developing KBE systems ensuring the preservation of KBE knowledge for the long term.     

Developing manufacturing ontologies for knowledge reuse in distributed manufacturing environment

The use of ontologies for knowledge sharing and distributed collaboration has been widely recognised in the knowledge modelling community, but the lack of a systematic and constructive methodology for developing manufacturing ontologies has impeded their wide usage for knowledge reuse in distributed manufacturing environments. This paper presents a constructive, two-level knowledge modelling approach to systematically develop manufacturing ontologies using both software engineering and Semantic Web paradigms. The UML/OCL (Unified Modeling Language/Object Constraint Language)-based object modelling is used first to serve as a graphical and structured basis for conceptual communication between domain experts and knowledge engineers. The OWL/SWRL (Web Ontology Language/Semantic Web Rule Language)-based ontology modelling then extends the UML/OCL-based object models with added semantics using a progressive, semantics-oriented knowledge acquisition method. An illustrative example for manufacturing ontology development in the manufacturing industry for producing electronic connectors is used to demonstrate the practicality of the proposed approach.     

基于本体的机械产品知识仓库研究与应用

为解决产品开发全生命周期中知识管理与知识重用问题,提出了基于本体的机械产品知识仓库系统构架。从语法、属性、结构、实例四个方面进行相似性的计算,实现将源本体的实例映射到目标本体的过程。采用OWL本体表示语言对产品知识进行本体建模。并对基于本体的案例推理进行了深入的研究。最后将研究成果应用于制造业知识管理系统的机械产品知识仓库子系统中。     

Ontologies in the context of product lifecycle management: state of the art literature review

The use of ontologies in the context of product lifecycle management (PLM) is gaining importance and popularity, while at the same time it generates a lot of controversy in discussions within scientific and engineering communities. Yet, what is ontology? What challenges have been addressed so far? What role does ontology play? Do we really need ontology? These are the core questions this paper seeks to address. We propose to conduct a comprehensive study of the concept of Ontology firstly in its domain of origin, Philosophy, and secondly in information science. Based on the understanding of this concept and an in-depth analysis of the state of the art, seven key roles of ontology are defined. These roles serve as a framework describing the general state of research on the use of ontologies in the context of PLM.     

Verification of knowledge shared across design and manufacture using a foundation ontology

Seamless computer-based knowledge sharing between departments of a manufacturing enterprise is useful in preventing unnecessary design revisions. A lack of interoperability between independently developed knowledge bases, however, is a major impediment in the development of a seamless knowledge-sharing system. Interoperability, being an ability to overcome semantic and syntactic differences during computer-based knowledge sharing, can be enhanced through the use of foundation ontologies. Foundation or core ontologies can be used to overcome differences existing in more specialised ontologies and to ensure seamless knowledge sharing. This is because these ontologies provide a common grounding for domain ontologies to be used by different functions or departments. This common base can be used by mediation and knowledge verification systems to authenticate the meaning of knowledge understood across different domains. For this reason, this research proposes a knowledge verification framework for developing a system capable of verifying knowledge between those domain ontologies which are developed out of a common core or foundation ontology. This framework makes use of ontology logic to standardise the way concepts from a foundation and core concepts ontology are used in domain ontologies and then, by using the same principles, the knowledge being shared is verified.     

工程机械工业设计知识库构建方案研究

目的 对工程机械工业设计知识进行研究,探索工程机械工业设计知识库的建构方法与流程,有效利用工程机械工业设计知识,提高工程机械产品造型设计能力。方法 通过工程机械工业设计相关知识研究的梳理、设计知识的分类和现代信息论关于产品所传达信息的分类对工程机械工业设计知识进行梳理、分类,建立工程机械工业设计知识模型框架,构建工程机械工业设计知识库框架。结论 通过对工程机械工业设计知识进行设计学的分类重构,构建了工程机械工业设计知识库框架与流程,并将研究结果在实践中予以运用。工程机械工业设计知识库的建立,为设计师提供了数字化辅助设计资源,有利于设计师快速获取与重用工程机械造型设计知识,大大提高设计效率及产品创新能力,同时也给其他设计知识库开发提供参考。     

An engineering design knowledge reuse methodology using process modelling

This paper describes an approach for reusing engineering design knowledge. Many previous design knowledge reuse systems focus exclusively on geometrical data, which is often not applicable in early design stages. The proposed methodology provides an integrated design knowledge reuse framework, bringing together elements of best practice reuse, design rationale capture and knowledge-based support in a single coherent framework. Best practices are reused through the process model. Rationale is supported by product information, which is retrieved through links to design process tasks. Knowledge-based methods are supported by a common design data model, which serves as a single source of design data to support the design process. By using the design process as the basis for knowledge structuring and retrieval, it serves the dual purpose of design process capture and knowledge reuse: capturing and formalising the rationale that underpins the design process, and providing a framework through which design knowledge can be stored, retrieved and applied. The methodology has been tested with an industrial sponsor producing high vacuum pumps for the semiconductor industry.     

开发知识级问题求解建模

开发知识级问题求解建模正在导致知识工程的重大变革。鉴于知识表示的本体论可以作为开发知识级建模的基础理论，我们提出描述问题求解过程组织的本体论ＲＡ和刻划领域世界结构的本体论ＯＴ，并设计了基于这两个本体论的问题求解建模方法。由于面向知识级建模分析的特点，支持该方法的建模环境ＫＭＥＰＳ有效地克服了面向符号级实现的知识工程的弱点。     

Framework for measuring complexity of aerospace systems

We propose a framework for measuring the complexity of aerospace systems and demonstrate its application. A measure that incorporates size, coupling, and modularity aspects of complexity is developed that emphasizes the importance of indirect coupling and feedback loops in the system. We demonstrate how hierarchical modular structure in the system reduces complexity and present an algorithm to decompose the system into modules. The measure is tested and found to be scalable for large-scale systems involving thousands of components and interactions (typical in modern aerospace systems). We investigate the sensitivity of the measure and demonstrate the ability of the framework to identify incorrectness in system representation. The merits of the framework are exemplified through a case study comparing three spacecraft. The framework provides the designer with three key capabilities that can positively influence the aerospace (or other) design process: the ability to identify complex subsystems, the ability to classify misrepresentations, and the ability to trade-off commercially of the shelf (COTS) and non-COTS components.     

PSOM<Superscript>2</Superscript>—partitioning-based scalable ontology matching using MapReduce

The growth and use of semantic web has led to a drastic increase in the size, heterogeneity and number of ontologies that are available on the web. Correspondingly, scalable ontology matching algorithms that will eliminate the heterogeneity among large ontologies have become a necessity. Ontology matching algorithms generally do not scale well due to the massive number of complex computations required to achieve matching. One of the methods used to address this problem is the use of partition-based systems to reduce the matching space. In this paper, we propose a new partitioning-based scalable ontology matching system called PSOM². We have designed a new neighbour-based intra-similarity measure to increase the quality of the cluster set formation for the partition-based ontology matching process. These sets of clusters or sub-ontologies are matched across the input ontologies to identify matchable cluster pairs, based on anchors that are efficiently discovered through a new light-weight linguistic matcher (EI-sub). However, in order to further increase the efficiency of the time-consuming anchor discovery process we have designed a MapReduce-based EI-sub process where anchors are discovered in distributed and parallel fashion. Experiments on benchmark OAEI (Ontology Alignment Evaluation Initiative) large scale ontologies demonstrate that the new PSOM² system achieves, on an average, 31% decrease in entropy of the clusters and 54.5% reduction in overall run time. Based on the experimental results, it is evident that the new PSOM² achieves better quality clusters and a major reduction in execution time, leading to an effective and scalable ontology matching system.     

The reuse of machining knowledge to improve designer awareness through the configuration of knowledge libraries in PLM

The nature of competition induces the need to constantly improve and perform better. For global aerospace manufacturers, this is as timely an epithet as ever as market forces urge for more growth, better financial return and market position. The macroeconomic aspect is compounded by the growth of product complexity and the need for higher product quality, hence the drive to reduce waste places emphasis upon production costs and the need to improve product performance. This paper focuses upon a rapid development and deployment method that enables the capture and representation of machining knowledge so that it may be shared and reused by design engineers to accelerate the design-make process. The study and mapping of information and knowledge relationships are described and put forward as a lightweight ontology. From this, a set of knowledge document templates were created to facilitate the capture, structuring and sharing of machining knowledge within a collaborative multidisciplinary aerospace engineering environment. An experimental pilot system has been developed to test and demonstrate that knowledge document templates can accelerate the sharing of machining knowledge within an industrial product lifecycle management environment. The results are discussed to provide a case for further development and application within the product domain.     

Graph-based knowledge reuse for supporting knowledge-driven decision-making in new product development

Pre-existing knowledge buried in manufacturing enterprises can be reused to help decision-makers develop good judgements to make decisions about the problems in new product development, which in turn speeds up and improves the quality of product innovation. This paper presents a graph-based approach to knowledge reuse for supporting knowledge-driven decision-making in new product development. The paper first illustrates the iterative process of knowledge-driven decision-making in new product development. Then, a novel framework is proposed to facilitate this process, where knowledge maps and knowledge navigation are involved. Here, OWL ontologies are employed to construct knowledge maps, which appropriately capture and organise knowledge resources generated at various stages of product lifecycle; the Personalised PageRank algorithm is used to perform knowledge navigation, which finds the most relevant knowledge in knowledge maps for a given problem in new product development. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach are demonstrated through a case study and two performance evaluation experiments.     

Towards cooperative frameworks for modeling and integrating biological processes knowledge

Data organization has become a strategic target for biologists due to the increasing volume of genomic data available for them. For this purpose, we need a complete knowledge model for representing biological system. In this paper, we deal with both processes for the creation and integration of shareable, reusable domain models within biology, which is a critical issue. In particular, this work introduces a new cooperative development approach for biology ontologies. This approach is based on the integration of the ontologies supplied by different human experts. Two experiments in biological domains are presented and their results discussed.     

基于知识图谱的产品适应性设计辅助决策方法

目的 针对当前产品适应性设计过程中缺乏需求与运维知识的融合、设计案例知识难以有效组织、设计知识重用率低等问题,提出一种基于知识图谱的产品改进设计辅助决策方法。方法 建立产品适应性设计辅助决策框架;采用知识图谱构建的方法,通过对产品运维知识数据源的特性分析,完成本体建模,实现知识图谱模式层的定义、知识实体与实体关系的抽取以及知识融合数据层的构建;在运行环境-故障模式映射关系与子图的匹配下,实现新的产品运行环境中潜在故障模式的推理,以及案例数据与CBR适应性设计措施的匹配,生成潜在故障模式下改进设计方案的候选集,并对改进设计方案进行多属性评价,实现改进方案的排序和决策。结果 以工程盾构螺旋输送机产品的适应性设计过程辅助决策为例,验证了该辅助决策方法的可行性和有效性。结论 采用知识图谱技术构建产品全生命周期数据实体关系,能够较好地解决知识融合、知识组织以及知识重用率低等问题,提高了设计效率。     

Ontology Based Ocean Knowledge Representation for Semantic Information Retrieval

The drastic growth of coastal observation sensors results in copious data that provide weather information. The intricacies in sensor-generated big data are heterogeneity and interpretation, driving high-end Information Retrieval (IR) systems. The Semantic Web (SW) can solve this issue by integrating data into a single platform for information exchange and knowledge retrieval. This paper focuses on exploiting the SW base system to provide interoperability through ontologies by combining the data concepts with ontology classes. This paper presents a 4-phase weather data model: data processing, ontology creation, SW processing, and query engine. The developed Oceanographic Weather Ontology helps to enhance data analysis, discovery, IR, and decision making. In addition to that, it also evaluates the developed ontology with other state-of-the-art ontologies. The proposed ontology’s quality has improved by 39.28% in terms of completeness, and structural complexity has decreased by 45.29%, 11% and 37.7% in Precision and Accuracy. Indian Meteorological Satellite INSAT-3D’s ocean data is a typical example of testing the proposed model. The experimental result shows the effectiveness of the proposed data model and its advantages in machine understanding and IR.     

Firm Partial Modularity and Performance in the Electronic Manufacturing Services Industry

Firms continue to develop new ways to decentralize non-core activities to outside parties. Scholars have approached this issue with modularity theory, suggesting a continuum of arrangements ranging from hierarchy to market. Hierarchy relies on fiat, while partially modular forms, those forms between hierarchy and market, require greater coordination, communication and relationships between firms than do fully modular (or market) forms. While modularity theory identifies this continuum, the associated empirical literature tends to dichotomize modularity: firms are either modular or they are not. Nor does the empirical literature examine the performance outcomes of modular arrangements within this continuum. By examining firms that vary between full integration and partial modularity with a continuous modularity measure, this paper empirically examines the performance outcomes associated with a range of modularity levels. We derive this measure from a peculiar inventory option available within the electronic manufacturing services (EMS) industry. Our data include observations on 260 firms over five years. We find that more firms rely on partially modular arrangements, the lower their performance. We suggest explanations for this result, and areas of future research meant to pursue it.     

Function-based design synthesis approach to design reuse

In this paper, a design reuse framework with a function-based design synthesis approach is proposed in the context of conceptual product development. Previous researches in design reuse have lacked a comprehensive functional base for knowledge representation and reasoning. The method presented in this paper uses a function-based product information model and a multiple objective optimization model to achieve design reuse. The information model is dependent on a functional core which is the key element vector. It is capable of modeling product information with sufficient abstraction, which in turn facilitates intelligent construction of product platforms. The multiple objective optimization method carries out automated design synthesis and evaluation subject to various design constraints. The approach has been applied in the design of the fan filter unit, a key clean room device. It has achieved intelligent design reuse in product conceptual design with significant rapidity and solution variety.     

Redesigning an Aerospace Engineering Curriculum for the Twenty-First Century: Results of a Survey

This paper describes the development and results of a mail survey to determine the views of industrial, government, and academic aerospace professionals on the required content of future aerospace engineering curricula and on the skills that will be needed by aerospace graduates in the early twenty-first century. The survey is one step in an ongoing process by the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at the University of Cincinnati (UC) to restructure its aerospace engineering curriculum. This paper discusses the development of the survey, its results, and the preliminary conclusions that have been drawn from the results. The survey included questions on such issues as introducing design experience to the students throughout the curriculum and presenting some topics using a more interdisciplinary approach than has traditionally been followed. While the survey was constructed primarily to gather information specific to the UC curriculum redesign effort, its results are relevant to other aerospace engineering programs considering or pursuing curricular redesign.