IDEF5 Ontology Description Capture Method: Concept Paper

The results of research towards an ontology capture method referred to as IDEF5 are presented. Viewed simply as the study of what exists in a domain, ontology is an activity that can be understood to be at work across the full range of human inquiry prompted by the persistent effort to understand the world in which it has found itself - and which it has helped to shape. In the contest of information management, ontology is the task of extracting the structure of a given engineering, manufacturing, business, or logistical domain and storing it in an usable representational medium. A key to effective integration is a system ontology that can be accessed and modified across domains and which captures common features of the overall system relevant to the goals of the disparate domains. If the focus is on information integration, then the strongest motivation for ontology comes from the need to support data sharing and function interoperability. In the correct architecture, an enterprise ontology base would allow th e construction of an integrated environment in which legacy systems appear to be open architecture integrated resources. If the focus is on system/software development, then support for the rapid acquisition of reliable systems is perhaps the strongest motivation for ontology. Finally, ontological analysis was demonstrated to be an effective first step in the construction of robust knowledge based systems

An Automated Methodology For A Comprehensive Definition Of The Supply Chain Using Generic Ontological Components

Today, worldwide business communities are in the era of the Supply Chains. A Supply Chain is a collection of several independent enterprises that partner together to achieve specific goals. These enterprises may plan, source, produce, deliver, or transport materials to satisfy an immediate or projected market demand, and may provide the after sales support, warranty services, and returns. Each enterprise in the Supply Chain has roles and elements. The roles include supplier, customer, or carrier and the elements include functional units, processes, information, information resources, materials, objects, decisions, practices, and performance measures. Each enterprise, individually, manages these elements in addition to their flows, their interdependencies, and their complex interactions. Since a Supply Chain brings several enterprises together to complement each other to achieve a unified goal, the elements in each enterprise have to complement each other and have to be managed together as one unit to achieve the unified goal efficiently. Moreover, since there are a large number of elements to be defined and managed in a single enterprise, then the number of elements to be defined and managed when considering the whole Supply Chain is massive. The supply chain community is using the Supply Chain Operations Reference model (SCOR model) to define their supply chains. However, the SCOR model methodology is limited in defining the supply chain. The SCOR model defines the supply chain in terms of processes, performance metrics, and best practices. In fact, the supply chain community, SCOR users in particular, exerts massive effort to render an adequate supply chain definition that includes the other elements besides the elements covered in the SCOR model. Also, the SCOR model is delivered to the user in a document, which puts a tremendous burden on the user to use the model and makes it difficult to share the definition within the enterprise or across the supply chain. This research is directed towards overcoming the limitations and shortcomings of the current supply chain definition methodology. This research proposes a methodology and a tool that will enable an automated and comprehensive definition of the Supply Chain at any level of details. The proposed comprehensive definition methodology captures all the constituent parts of the Supply Chain at four different levels which are, the supply chain level, the enterprise level, the elements level, and the interaction level. At the Supply Chain level, the various enterprises that constitute the supply chain are defined. At the enterprise level, the enterprise elements are identified. At the enterprises\u27 elements level, each element in the enterprise is explicitly defined. At the interaction level, the flows, interdependence, and interactions that exist between and within the other three levels are identified and defined. The methodology utilized several modeling techniques to generate generic explicit views and models that represents the four levels. The developed views and models were transformed to a series of questions and answers, where the questions correspond to what a view provides and the answers are the knowledge captured and generated from the view. The questions and answers were integrated to render a generic multi-view of the supply chain. The methodology and the multi-view were implemented in an ontology-based tool. The ontology includes sets of generic supply chain ontological components that represent the supply chain elements and a set of automated procedures that can be utilized to define a specific supply chain. A specific supply chain can be defined by re-using the generic components and customizing them to the supply chain specifics. The ontology-based tool was developed to function in the supply chain dynamic, information intensive, geographically dispersed, and heterogeneous environment. To that end, the tool was developed to be generic, sharable, automated, customizable, extensible, and scalable

Mathematics as a Supporting Tool for Technological Management

The necessity of production involving the applicability of mathematics in the management decision-making process stimulates the elaboration of this article. This approach seeks to develop under a new profile of Mathematical Science, now as another tool of technological management, while it allows to understand the diverse deductive paradigms of this knowledge of support to the administrative process. In this way, the general objective is to deal with the application of mathematics as a tool in technological management; (1), to evaluate the applicability of these tools in the management of small and medium enterprises (2), to propose a mathematical model that contributes to the innovation of the business enterprise (3). The theoretical foundation is in the Taxonomy of Bloom, prescribed for the development of abilities and cognitive attitudes of the individual. There will be no doubt that mathematical problem-solving procedures advance significantly, especially to the demands of complex solutions. The Content Analysis Method and related procedures apply to this task. As a result .... Therefore, the study of mathematical and statistical application, in addition to computer resources to identify the possible trend in the index of technological management, the present article states that mathematics as a tool has its widespread applicability within the most diverse types of technological management, regardless of their size and showing how mathematics is associated in different areas of knowledge as a trend for technological management, since it is still considered for some as a difficult element among managers

Intelligent tutoring systems for systems engineering methodologies

The general goal is to provide the technology required to build systems that can provide intelligent tutoring in IDEF (Integrated Computer Aided Manufacturing Definition Method) modeling. The following subject areas are covered: intelligent tutoring systems for systems analysis methodologies; IDEF tutor architecture and components; developing cognitive skills for IDEF modeling; experimental software; and PC based prototype

Modelling information flow for organisations delivering microsystems technology

Motivated by recent growth and applications of microsystems technology (MST), companies within the MST domain are beginning to explore avenues for understanding, maintaining and improving information flow, within their organisations and to/from customers, with a view to enhancing delivery performance. Delivery for organisations is the flow of goods from sellers to buyers and a classic approach to understanding information flow is via the use of modelling techniques. Cont/d

Regenerative life support system research

Sections on modeling, experimental activities during the grant period, and topics under consideration for the future are contained. The sessions contain discussions of: four concurrent modeling approaches that were being integrated near the end of the period (knowledge-based modeling support infrastructure and data base management, object-oriented steady state simulations for three concepts, steady state mass-balance engineering tradeoff studies, and object-oriented time-step, quasidynamic simulations of generic concepts); interdisciplinary research activities, beginning with a discussion of RECON lab development and use, and followed with discussions of waste processing research, algae studies and subsystem modeling, low pressure growth testing of plants, subsystem modeling of plants, control of plant growth using lighting and CO2 supply as variables, search for and development of lunar soil simulants, preliminary design parameters for a lunar base life support system, and research considerations for food processing in space; and appendix materials, including a discussion of the CELSS Conference, detailed analytical equations for mass-balance modeling, plant modeling equations, and parametric data on existing life support systems for use in modeling

An information model of a centralized admission campaign in Russian higher education institutions

The aim of the work is to structure individual application environments of the information model of a centralized admission campaign in higher education institutions in Russia by modifying the corresponding structure of the Federal information system supporting state final examination and admission procedures. , The IDEF1X modeling methodology was used as research tool. The main result of the work is the formation of such information model subject areas as Educational programs , Entrance exams , Applicant’s Priorities and Physical persons. Practical implementation of this model will reduce the costs of universities to support their own information systems, strengthen controls over the compliance with Russian legislation requirements in the field of higher education, ensure the most open and transparent way of applicants’ competitive selection. Identified are the blocks of the model of the Federal information system that have already been implemented but require certain modification. The information model can be used in other countries with similar state final examination and state information systems.Keywords: admission to universities, information model, applican

Employing Data Warehousing for Contract Administration: e-Dispute Resolution Prototype

Although data warehouse is very practical for decision making, its application in contract administration is rather limited because of the complicated legal issues and the voluminous data involved. This research attempts to bridge this gap in two ways. First, conceptual models of data warehouse are developed to explain the contents and overall features of the system that were verified by 12 experts in Malaysia. Second, an electronic dispute resolution template, known as e-Dispute Resolution (e-DR), is prototyped by using a database tool based on the guidelines of contractual variations agreed by the experts. Subsequently, the prototype is evaluated by 16 professional quantity surveyors from an established consulting firm. The prototype was organized based on a systematic breakdown of issues and incorporated a Boolean keyword search feature. The results show that the concept of data warehouse is applicable to contract administration and is well received by practitioners. Overall, this article renders significant theoretical and practical contributions in which the resulting e-DR does not only lead toward more informed decision making but is also able to mitigate or prevent contractual disputes in the construction industry, where such a phenomenon seems to be inevitabl

The presentation of business process models.

It has become common practice for businesses encompassing all industries to utilize a tool or technique to capture the data and flow of processes running through a company. As companies grow and the volume and complexity of the business processes increases, it becomes of greater importance to rigorously record the functions being performed. As a consequence of this, the simple diagrams that once represented the flows of information steadily become page after page of complex transactions. Effectively communicating the information stored within these large and often complex models to the end user is a significant problem. This research addresses the issues surrounding the presentation of such large scale and complex Business Process Models to the end user.An in depth literature review and benchmarking study was carried out, with the intention of investigating the current practices used within industry, and identifying any operational issues regarding these practices. Through this research work, a methodology is developed to allow the transformation and transportation of a selected area within a complex business process model. This transformation/transportation process allows the generation of a new model, containing clear and simple process logic and presented in a user-friendly format.The entire methodology is an automated process allowing the end user to quickly select an area within a complex process model, then transform and transport this area into a model of reduced complexity. This in turn increases the value process modelling on a cooperate wide scale, as the reduction of complexity could increase the volume of users utilising process modelling, promoting a shared vision of an organisation