Research on ontology-based integrated product modeling in Multidisciplinary collaborative environment

To effectively integrate product information spanning various stages throughout the whole product life cycle, and facilitate seamless sharing and interoperability at knowledge level in heterogeneous collaborative environment, a framework of integrated product modeling based on multiple ontologies is presented This framework is composed of master model and domain models with the development of a shared basic ontology and domain-specific ontologies. Both the ontologies enable product knowledge acquisition and management. The layered master model contains semantic-enriched core and shared information and supports product and process integration. By extracting from master model and knowledge-based reusing from others in different contexts, the domain models are established with well-defined meaning, which permits each discipline to work on its own perspective while ensuring co-ordination and consistency at knowledge level in multidisciplinary collaborative product development.