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Figure 5. Schematic description of the product lifecycle
in Figure 5. Creation of this knowledge map is
described here only briefly.
for others to read about and understand it; 2) so
software agents can search relevant information;
and 3) so humans can examine the information as
well. The ultimate goal is to achieve something
that can be understood by non-experts as well by
machines, so that both can codify and personalize
the knowledge in the network.
Hence, a preliminary ontology for the product
lifecycle was devised to determine and map the
competences of the INPRO network's members.
This was the second phase of the research approach
for defining the input knowledge resources of the
PLM multi site platform. This formal conceptual-
ization of the product lifecycle domain was used
then as the basis for applying the genetic search
algorithms for selecting the required research
groups. The hierarchy in the preliminary ontol-
ogy was based upon discussions and interactions
among experts in the field from different partners.
As a result of this meeting, the following six cat-
egories were determined for the first level of the
hierarchy: Design, Manufacturing, Assembly Use,
Disassembly, End-of-Life (Shpitalni, Guttman, &
Bossin, 2005). The initial (top level) components
product Lifecycle ontology
Consideration of any knowledge base, knowledge-
based system, or knowledge-level agent must be
based upon some formal conceptualization, either
implicit of explicit (Gruber & Olsen, 1994). This
is true for the product lifecycle as well. That is,
a body of formally represented knowledge must
be based upon a conceptualization: the objects,
concepts, and other entities that are assumed to
exist in that area of interest and the relationships
that hold among them. This type of common termi-
nology, or ontology, is used to develop a common
understanding of the information in a knowledge
domain and to provide the means for automatic
searching (Genesereth & Nilsson, 1987)8.
In the present research, the first step in building
the product lifecycle ontology involves identifying
the current competences of the members of the co-
operative project, as well as industry requirements.
The goal of this ontology is threefold: 1) so people
can understand and describe what they do in order
Figure 6. Top level components of the product lifecycle ontology considered in the INPRO project
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