Evaluation of a Commercial Model Lifecycle Management (MLM) Tool to Support Models for Manufacturing (MfM) Methodology

Abstract

Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE) supports the conceptualization of systems, proposes independence between knowledge conceptualization and tools, and fosters reusability and interoperability. There are several research works oriented to define ontologies in the manufacturing domain, but only a few consider their use in an Ontology-based Engineering (OBE) perspective, or consider a framework to manage the whole lifecycle of the models in supporting software tools. Models for Manufacturing (MfM) is an OBE methodology which helps to define and manage ontologies to capture not only explicit domain knowledge, but also implicit and tacit knowledge from domain experts, which are crucial for design and decision support tools. The ontology models lifecycle is managed through a Model Lifecycle Management (MLM) system where the tool agnostic MfM metamodels are implemented. This paper shows the implementation of one of the MfM metamodels, the Scope metamodel, in a commercial software tool which covers one of the MLM main functions, the editing function, and demonstrates the ontology scope model definition with an example. The purpose of this evaluation is to demonstrate that the MfM methodology can be applied to a largely used standard language implemented in COTS (Commercial Off-the-Shelf) tools.