Acquiring Configuration Knowledge Bases in the Semantic Web Using UML

Abstract

Abstract. The Semantic Web will provide the conceptual infrastructure to allow new forms of business application integration. This paper outlines our approach for integrating Web-based sales systems for highly complex customizable products and services (configuration systems) making use of descriptive representation formalisms of the Semantic Web. The evolving trend towards highly specialized solution providers cooperatively offering configurable products and services to their customers requires the extension of current (standalone) configuration technology with capabilities of knowledge sharing and distributed configuration problem solving. On the one hand, a standardized representation language is needed in order to tackle the challenges imposed by heterogeneous representation formalisms of state-of-the-art configuration environments (e.g. description logic or predicate logic based configurators), on the other hand it is important to integrate the development and maintenance of configuration systems into industrial software development processes. We show how to support both goals by demonstrating the applicability of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for configuration knowledge acquisition and by providing a set of rules for transforming UML models into configuration knowledge bases specified by languages such as OIL or DAML+OIL which represent the foundation for potential future description standards for Web services.

The illusion of tacit knowledge as the great problem in the development of product configurators

“…Felfernig et al (2002) describe the representation concepts for modeling generic product structures (to be represented in the knowledge base of a configurator) that are defined in the de facto standard configuration ontologies (Soininen et al, 1998; Felfernig et al, 2000) and represent a synthesis of resource-based, function-based, connection-based, and structure-based configuration approaches: Component types: “Component types represent the basic building blocks a final product can be built of. They are characterized by attributes.” Generalization hierarchies: “Component types with a similar structure are arranged in generalization hierarchies.” Part–whole relationships: “Part–whole relationships between component types state the range of subparts an aggregate consists of.” Compatibilities and requirements: “Some types of components must not be used together within the same configuration, that is, they are incompatible.…”

“…However, as mentioned before, it does not seem that this is what configurator literature is referring to. Felfernig et al (2002) describe the representation concepts for modeling generic product structures (to be represented in the knowledge base of a configurator) that are defined in the de facto standard configuration ontologies (Soininen et al, 1998;Felfernig et al, 2000) and represent a synthesis of resourcebased, function-based, connection-based, and structure-based configuration approaches: † Component types: "Component types represent the basic building blocks a final product can be built of. They are characterized by attributes."…”