Managing lifecycle of product information with an ontology-based knowledge framework

Abstract

The effective management of product information within a formalized, digital and interoperable infrastructure remains a significant gap in realizing the full potential of modern Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementations in industrial contexts. While the academic paradigm of PLM has been extensively emphasized in the scientific literature for over two decades as a sustainable company strategy, contemporary PLM implementations prove inadequate in handling the extensive volume and variety of information generated throughout a product’s lifecycle. Starting from a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the PLM paradigm and of its inherent implications, the analysis of the PLM implementation of a big player in engineering and manufacturing of turbomachinery products for Oil & Gas and Energy markets is analyzed, allowing to identify existing major general contradictions from an industrial perspective. While it is reaffirmed that the attainment of a neutral, harmonized and universally agreed standardization is nowadays missing and is crucial in the enabling of the PLM paradigm through digital technologies, the present study attempts to demonstrate how a general and agnostic ontology-based framework may straightforwardly fulfill all the identified demands of the PLM paradigm and, therefore, how ontologies play a central role in this field of research by bridging different domains to enable a holistic product conceptualization, lifecycle management, and data interoperability among different digital agents.