Modeling considerations for product ontology

Abstract

An issue in utilizing ontology in product information domain is how to make it operational. This requires considering the features to be included in a pragmatic product information database which should contain the key concepts and the relationships in the domain. Ontological modeling of product information is a starting as well as a most important point for practical deployment. It often involves problems such as the choice and representation of the proper semantic relationships, handling of product properties, and product descriptions associated with their units of measure. In this paper, we introduce an approach to those problems. We recently engaged in a project to build an operational product ontology system. The directions to problems, which are presented in this paper, were obtained from this project, and may serve a role as a reference model for similar projects in future. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.