MASON: A Proposal For An Ontology Of Manufacturing Domain

This paper presents a proposal for a manufacturing upper ontology, aimed to draft a common semantic net in manufacturing domain. Usefulness of ontologies for data formalization and sharing, especially in a manufacturing environment, are first discussed. Details are given about the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and its adequation for ontologies in the manufacturing systems is shown. A concrete proposal named MASON (MAnufacturing’s Semantics ONtology) is presented and two applications of this ontology are exposed: automatic cost estimation and semantic-aware multiagent system for manufacturing.