An analysis of perspectives for “capability engineering” has been conducted by the INCOSE UK Capability Working Group (CWG). This paper is a continuation of this study led by the CWG ontology work stream that aims to develop a single shared ontology for the concept of capability engineering to enable semantic interoperability and to support a formal and explicit specification of a shared conceptualisation. Case study material from the different domains of rail, defence and information services was used. The ontology development was executed in three phases; (1) pre-analysis, (2) ontology modelling and (3) post-analysis. The pre-analysis involved literature reviews, requirements specification, systems engineering process utilisation; and resource identification i.e. examination of the case study material. The ontology modelling phase comprised information extraction and classification in addition to modelling and code representation using a mark-up tool, MS Excel and Protege. The post-analysis involved validation workshops through using expert focus groups.

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7.5.1 An incremental hybridisation of heterogeneous case studies to develop an ontology for capability engineering

The emergence of Systems of Systems Engineering (SoSE) poses challenges to the consistent use of terminology within and/or across heterogeneous sectors such as transport, energy and defence. In preparation for Horizon 2020, an €80 billion financial instrument running from 2014 to 2020 to implement the Europe 2020 strategy, the European Commission funded T-AREA-SoS project to formulate a strategic research agenda for SoSE that spans US and Europe activities. As part of T-AREA-SoS, a thesaurus will be created to ensure that SoS concepts and terms are consistently interpreted, and to provide an artefact that will be of significant assistance to planners of future programmes in SoSE. This paper proposes an approach for the formalisation and mapping of terminologies for a SoSE thesaurus development. This paper also discusses the theoretical foundations and exemplars of this applied approach in addition to the user interface specification for a proposed web-based thesaurus development.

Formalisation and mapping of terminologies for Systems of Systems Engineering thesaurus

The developing discipline of systems of systems engineering (SoSE) is gaining attention in an increasingly broad range of domains; however, each domain comes with its own set of terms and concepts so that there may be confusion between different domains ostensibly engaged in similar challenges. SoSE is faced with concept multiplicity (one term, more than one concept) and term multiplicity (one concept, more than one term). It is unrealistic to expect long-established domains to simply change ontology to match with other domains, but a means of recognising related concepts and terms across domains and across industrial sectors will enable more rapid progress to be made in the development of SoSE. The approach taken to generating a thesaurus, through which such relationships can be documented, is presented. The approach is essentially consultative among SoSE experts and the current version of the thesaurus is available online. A combination of problem statement definition and logical decomposition has been used; the method is described and application is illustrated using well-known terms.

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Systems of systems engineering thesaurus approach: from concept to realisation

Knowledge management in offshore outsourcing projects is a very important topic, but this area of research has got limited academic attention leading to lack of studies exist on the management of both client's and service provider's knowledge for developing embedded software. The main goal of this study is to fill in this gap by analyzing client's generic and specific knowledge as well as the service provider's generic and specific knowledge and how this knowledge could be effectively managed in this endeavor. We conducted an extensive literature review on the major topics related to this field. From the analysis, an integrative model of knowledge management for embedded software development through offshore outsourcing is developed which deals with both parties' generic and specific knowledge. We posit that through the provision of adequate training, where outsourcing client takes the main responsibilities in planning and conducting what kind of distinctive knowledge types should be delivered to service provider and how it should be performed, it is possible to facilitate effective knowledge transfer and management for the development of high quality embedded software through offshore outsourcing.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/6008221/6017605/06017812.pdf

Knowledge management in embedded software development through offshore outsourcing: A theoretical view

The manufacture of machines to be simplified For this purpose, a method and an apparatus are proposed in which in a development project (5) a solution principle (W) is implemented in real (I) is automatically characterized in a parts library (8) a corresponding class (K) and the implementation (I) deposited With a further implementation can be so resorted to the parts library

Production of a machine with part classification

Although importance of knowledge sharing among designers has been widely recognized, the knowledge about structure, functionality and behavior in the modular mechanical product design is often scattered across technical domain. In this paper, aiming at capturing structural knowledge, the knowledge externalization framework for modular mechanical product is developed based on modular structural ontology which provides fundamental concepts for capturing the target domain and a common vocabulary for description of modular structure knowledge. Finally, the methodology discussed in the paper is implemented with the semantic web technologies and a case of modular design for machine tool structure.

Aiping Li

Papers

Ontology-based modeling of structural knowledge for modular mechanical products