An important requirement for world-class CIM systems is the ability to capture knowledge from multiple disciplines and store it in a form that facilitates re-use, sharing, and extendibiJity. Taxonomies and glossaries, in and of themselves, will not fully address this requirement, and will need to be supplemented so as to circumscribe the meanings and logical properties of the terms as precisely as possible. We thus perceive the need for ontotogils rather than mere taxonomies. An ontology is a description of the kinds of things,both physicaland conceptual, that make up a given domain and the relationships among them as represented by the terminology in that domain. This paper describesa scientific methodior acquiring, structuring and maintaining CIM ontologies. An ontology capture method is essentialto developingpractical CIM ontologies because it facilitates the direct capture of CIM knowledge by practitioners within the manufacturing domain. The proposed ontologycapture method includes:(I) A graphical language to support conceptual ontology analysis.(2) A structured text languagefor detailed ontologycharacterization.(3) A systematic procedure that providesguidelines for effective ontology capture.Finally, the utilityof the method isdemonstrated by describinghow the method is used to develop an ontology of a shop floor control system.
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