An Ontology Based Semantic Machine Tool Selection for Multi Scale Wire EDM Processes

Abstract

Manufacturing high-tech complex products which contain multi-scale complex features without outsourcing considering company's capabilities is quite difficult. Outsourcing some processes to other independent companies is a crucial step toward fabricating a product. To find the most suitable partner company several critical parameters should be considered including company machine-park, skilled personnel, infrastructure, etc. Having comprehensive information about necessary machine tool(s) to outsourcing related manufacturing process is essential. Focusing on Wire Electro Discharge Machining (WEDM) process, the objective of this paper is to introduce a platform to store and analyze information and data about part(s) and machine tools and show out coming results as a list of capable machine tools to produce the desired parts with multi-scale features.

The Intersection Between Semantic Web and Materials Science

“…A prototype gave users access to the linked knowledge structure about metallic materials, their fields of applications, their properties, and other information. Another example of the potential of information retrieval is provided in the work of Sadigh et al [ 41 ] In this work, the authors created an ontology for the experiments workflow of wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM). Thus, they aimed the engineering vision of selecting the most suitable machine tool based on manufacturing criteria.…”

“…Zhao and Wang et al [ 30 ] specified with their method NanoMine a Semantic Extract, Transform, and Load (SETL) script, in which the data, together with the ontology, enriches the knowledge graph with entity definitions, indicating the provenance and the source of curation of the knowledge. The work from Sadigh et al [ 41 ] provided an ontology for a wire electrical discharge machining (WEDM) experimental workflow, which allowed for obtaining data provenance of MSE experiments. The ontology includes the definition of materials, machines, and tools represented by classes, relationships, axioms, and constraints.…”

“…Thus, “utilizing this resource with coded inferences, existing knowledge, and inferred knowledge can be automatically incorporated rather than manually curated into the knowledge graph”. This automation is also part of the aim of Sadigh et al [ 41 ] when they introduce a semantic reasoning process. This process creates appropriate relations between the desired characteristics of a part of a manufactured product and the corresponding machine tools to produce it.…”

“…In 16 of the selected papers, ontologies are created (Figure 3a) for specific MSE tasks. [8,10,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41] Ontologies are formulated in OWL to express knowledge in a structured, flexible, and extensible way.…”

“…In total, ontology-based applications were observed in 14 of the selected papers. [28][29][30][32][33][34][35]37,38,40,41,[50][51][52] These applications include the reuse, combination, and extension of existing ontologies and semantic resources (Figure 3b,i,ii). An example is given by Li et al [33] demonstrating the extension of two nanotechnology ontologies with new concepts and axioms in a two-step procedure.…”