Evolution and Commercial Deployment of Integrated Technical Knowledge Management System Based on Ontology Engineering

In this paper, we describe the evolution of OntoGear, which has ever been discussed in the previous research, and newly developed software tools. OntoGear is an engineering knowledge management software platform based on ontology engineering, and its previous system has provided the most basic functionalities based on systematization framework of functional knowledge; i.e. describing a function decomposition tree, and building way knowledge base to share and reuse organized and generalized functional knowledge. Compared to the previous one, our new system realized the functionality of physical process integration model (hereafter ppim) that allows engineers to describe whole processes of any artifacts in the form of function decomposition trees in their product lifecycle. New OntoGear system is appended two client tools and a server--a modeling tool for ppim, a viewer for ppim and OntoGear server. Furthermore, we introduce an application using the system for design support of application system of SOFC (Solid Oxide Fuel Cell), which is a kind of fuel cell and expected for its quick realization. The application contributes to clarify whole functional structures and the relationships among them through SOFC system's lifecycle. Since one of the tools of OntoGear software environment has presently released as a software product, which is named OntoloGear SE (Standard Edition), by MetaMoJi Corporation, we briefly report the productization status.