Applying Semantic Web Technologies to Provide Feasibility Feedback in Early Design Phases

In the product development process as it is currently practiced, production is still often neglected in the early design phases, leading to late and costly changes. Using the knowledge of product designers concerning production process design, this paper introduces an ontological framework that enables early feasibility analyses. In this way, the number of iterations between product and process design can almost certainly be reduced, which would accelerate the product development process. Additionally, the approach provides process engineers with possible production sequences that can be used for process planning. To provide feasibility feedback, the approach presented relies on semantic web technologies. An ontology was developed that supports designers to model the relations among products, processes, and resources in a way that allows the use of generic SPARQL queries. Future applicability of this approach is ensured by aligning it with the top-level ontology DOLCE. We also compare the ontology's universals to fundamental classes of existing knowledge bases from the manufacturing and the batch processing domains. This comparison demonstrates the approach's domain-independent applicability. Two proofs of concept are described, one in the manufacturing domain and one in the batch processing domain.