Ontology Based Innovative Support in Industrial Product Development

Within the unique and small series industrial product development, especially custom-made products assuming major responsibilities on management is required: assuming the responsibility of innovative technological solutions that ensure quality, the specification of purchase components with a reasonable quality/price rate, and with a quick response to market requirements with a very short production cycle. The generic product development model, based on the use of ontologies, will allow addressing the structuring of a variety of products, even of families of products, so that future projects may benefit from the historical background of a certain configuration. The purpose of this paper is to develop a generic ontology model for machine, machinery and equipment type products, which should be a support tool assisting the decision making on the structure and composition of the product. For the development of an ontology of an industrial product type it is required a framework common to that of design engineers. We summarize the results of product structuring operations developed in the design of the maintenance and service machines of sewerage facilities. Steps were taken in view of the ontological approach of the development process for the following types of equipment that are part of the same family: Suction Cum Jetting Machine, Cesspool emptier and Sewer Jetting Machine. Following the analyses carried out, 14 macro-structures were identified with which one can structure any type of machine mentioned above. Approaching the product development starting from subassemblies implicitly allows paralleling the design activity with the manufacturing activity.