Middleware + Ontology Management

The Middleware components integrate and homogenize the data acquired by the diverse set of sensors installed in the shop-floor. A subset of these data is directly processed so as to perform a near real-time update of the corresponding KPIs.

In addition to the Middleware, the Ontology Manager tool can be used for managing the ontologies of SatisFactory. It can list the ontologies of SatisFactory, create/import new ones, delete existing ones, generate underlying ontological structures, etc. The Ontology Manager will be implemented using the Open Semantic Framework architecture. T

he Open Semantic Framework (OSF) is an integrated software stack using semantic technologies for knowledge management. It has a layered architecture that combines existing open source software with additional open source components developed specifically to provide a complete semantic technology framework. The premise of the entire stack is based on the RDF (Resource Description Framework) data model. RDF provides the ready means for integrating existing structured data assets in any format, with semi-structured data like XML and HTML, and with unstructured documents or text.

The OSF framework is made operational via ontologies that capture the domain or knowledge space, matched with internal ontologies that guide OSF operations and data display. This design approach is known as ODapps, for ontology-driven applications. Mediating the natural semantic differences that arise between people, departments and other actors in the information space is done by employing best practices for ontology and vocabulary construction.