Towards an Ontological Formalization of Technical Product for Design and Manufacturing

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) deals with information modelling across the entire lifespan of industrial products. The use of computer-based technologies for PLM purposes requires product knowledge to be specified in formal languages, so that the semantics of the modelling elements is explicitly defined in relation to experts' conceptualisations. Ontologies used in PLM contexts are often developed to satisfy specific application requirements, and the meaning of the employed concepts is left unspecified. In this paper, we present a preliminary ontology focused on the notion of product from the engineering design and manufacturing perspectives. Our aim is to contribute at the development of a comprehensive ontological specification of product knowledge for product lifecycle modelling applications.