What ontologies for PLM: A critical analysis

Abstract

Product development environments are known for their growing complexity, especially if they are envisioned for the whole product lifecycle. The objective of the PLM business activity is to manage products across their lifecycles, from cradle to grave. PLM is focused on the product, and holistically brings together many product-related components. For such environments, ontologies could play an important role to ensure semantic interoperability and correct information exchange. But what kinds of ontologies are best suited to fulfil this task. The work presented in this paper overviews some of the prominent ontologies used in product development and explores the usefulness of some typical known ontologies for PLM needs. The ontologies are assessed with respect to some ontology engineering and PLM key criteria. By identifying positive and negative aspects with respect to the previous criteria, we clarify the range of alternatives in creating an ontology devoted to PLM purposes.