PRoduct ONTOlogy:: Defining product-related concepts for logistics planning activities

Current Internet-based technologies enable the operation of extended supply chains (ESCs) and introduce new requirements on managing and sharing product-related information in such ESCs, where product models are the fundamental information source. This paper describes an extension of the product data framework originally introduced by PRoduct ONTOlogy (PRONTO). The extended model provides the foundations for a distributed product data management (DPDM) system and is fully consistent with the idea of managing product information according to two hierarchies: the abstraction hierarchy (AS) and the structural hierarchy (SH). They formalize the data aggregation and disaggregation processes required by logistics planning activities. In this work, the Property and PropertyValue concepts were incorporated into the ontology to handle different types of data. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.