Use of Semantic Mediation in Manufacturing Supply Chains

Abstract

This chapter reports on our experience investigating issues of semantic interoperability through three related research projects. The common thread throughout our work is the central role that system engineering processes and their formalization and automation play in facilitating semantic interoperability. Systems engineering is any methodical approach to the synthesis of an entire system that (1) defines views of that system that help elicit and elaborate requirements, and (2) manages the relationship of requirements to performance measures, constraints, risk, components, and disciplinespecific system views. The projects described in this chapter automate tasks traditionally performed by human systems engineers. Our perspective is that today’s service-oriented architectures, tomorrow’s semantic web, and other efforts in interoperability seek to do the same. In these efforts, the task to be executive Summary