How Practical Are Product Definition Ontologies? - Part Two (Product Value Management)

How Practical Are Product Definition Ontologies? - Part Two (Product Value Management): "In the previous blog (How Practical Are Product Definition Ontologies? - Part One), I tried to outline (by a very broad brush stroke) two basic approaches to managing shared product definition representations. I compared them based on some rudimentary criteria to conclude that ontology based approach offers more benefits in a complex product manufacturing environment. We are naturally more familiar with the meta-schema mapping approach, because it is conceptually just an extension of more mature documented database management techniques. Relational databases have been around for over fifty years, still maturing at a significant rate in areas of interoperability, information aggregation and data exchange. However, robust technical solutions based on ontologies are relatively new, although conceptually drawing on many years of advanced research in areas of semantic webs and taxonomy of complex systems. In this part, I will review basic technical aspects of managing product definition with an ontology based solution. In the next part (Part Three), I will discuss various guidelines and recommendations for successful planning and implementation of such a solution."