On technology for ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge integration

[[abstract]]Compared with relying on the efforts of various enterprises collaborating on product lifecycle activities, such as coordination, communication and control, the ability to effectively share product information and knowledge is more important. Therefore, how to best integrate such heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among various cooperating enterprises has become an extremely important knowledge management subjects associated with collaborative product lifecycle. This study develops a novel mechanism for integrating ontology-based product lifecycle knowledge to effectively integrate the heterogeneous product knowledge distributed among different enterprises during a product’s lifecycle, thereby facilitating sharing of this product knowledge