Knowledge-based expert system to support the semantic interoperability in smart manufacturing

Abstract The manufacturing industry has been challenged to find new technologies solutions to improve their manufacturing systems to meet new customise product while ensuring high quality and low costs. Alongside, a considerable increase in the quantity, complexity and detailed information necessary to make all system work, it has increased the need for semantic interoperability over the entire process. The semantic interoperability is necessary to integrate the heterogenic nature of the information that comes from different sources, which could lead a divergent way of interpreting its meaning, causing misinformation, misleads and errors that increase project costs and development time. The semantic interoperability is necessary to integrate the heterogenic nature of the information that comes from different sources and have its meaning interpreted in a divergent way, causing misinformation, misleads and errors that increase project costs and development time. In this context, this work contributes to the development of a Semantic Interoperable Smart Manufacturing to promote semantic interoperability across the manufacturing system considering information and concepts from multiple domains as well as sharing them across different phases of the manufacturing process. The approach proposed was validates in an experimental case of the engine calibration process of an automotive industry. The case was focused on an integration of a new auxiliary brake system composed by an electrical vacuum pump. The experimental system aids gathering and sharing information across the domains of design definitions, project requirements, and calibration process. The results demonstrated the potential of ontology-based systems to promote interoperability, exchanging information and pointing out the inconsistency within a smart manufacturing system.