Use of Ontologies in Product Information Management: A Proposal for a Multinational Engineering and Technology Company

The PIM system importance has increased due to technical sophistication of products, their need of internal management or external publishment. ERP and CCMS systems should be integrated with a PIM system that acts as the “backbone” of product information. This project proposed an ontology-centric solution to manage product information for complex modular systems available in the catalog of one of the largest multinational organizations in engineering and technology sector. Based on action-research methodology, existing taxonomies of online product catalog at ERP and CCMS systems were analyzed, an ontology of updated taxonomies was created using Protégé tool and validated by experts. This solution was anchored in some Industry 4.0 and 5.0 pillars, by formalizing smart manufacturing knowledge in an interoperable way between multiple systems and allowing a tailored customer experience, based on interactive products and hyper customization. The organization can now be more efficient in managing individual or integrated products as complex modular systems and in communicating with customers.