System reconfiguration ontology to support model‐based systems engineering: Approach linking design and operations

Abstract

System reconfiguration is essential in complex systems management, as it is an enabler of system flexibility and adaptability. It ensures system operation and increases reliability, availability, maintainability, testability, safety, and reuse of system entities and technologies. For the reconfiguration of a system in use, it is necessary to assess, in continuity, the system's state with regard to its context. Identifying data supporting system reconfiguration represents a major industrial challenge and is linked directly to the development of industrial reconfiguration tools. Reconfiguration tools are based on a data model, also called ontology, which represents key concepts of system reconfiguration and their relationships. A particular difficulty of developing the data model is the multi-domain nature of reconfiguration. Furthermore, it needs to address a considerable diversity of system types. Few publications propose an ontology supporting data identification and tool development for the entire process. Hence, in this paper we propose to formalize the system reconfiguration process and propose an overarching ontology, which we call OSysRec. This ontology considers data at the management, dynamics, and structure level. The proposed ontology has been developed based upon expert knowledge and several industrial uses cases. The OSysRec ontology allowed a better understanding of the reconfiguration process, and hence it can be deployed for developing efficient and effective reconfiguration tools at the industrial scale. The ontology has been tested on an industrial case study to validate the proposed approach.

Ecosystem integration: the use of ontologies in integrating knowledge across manufacturing value networks

“…OSysRec is a systems reconfiguration ontology to support modelbased systems engineering (Qasim et al, 2023). The OSysRec ontology is complex and is designed to support multidisciplinary solutions during extended periods with ongoing modifications and updates to advanced systems.…”

“…The OntoTwin environment can be a support/governance infrastructure for larger-scale implementation of the OSysRec ontologies over time. Overall structure and contents of an OSysRec implementation (Qasim et al, 2023).…”

“…Recent systems engineering literature referenced in Section 5.4, demonstrates the benefits of cross-domain ontology frameworks for the integration of structure, dynamics and management reference models within the growing field of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) that applies modelling principles, methods, languages, and tools to the entire lifecycle of large, complex, interdisciplinary, sociotechnical systems (Qasim et al, 2023). These novel engineering approaches point to the need for further research into the role of ontologies and meta-models in MBSE as a useful direction for building the resilience of manufacturing enterprises.…”

Digital Twin Framework for Reconfiguration Management: Concept & Evaluation

“…Furthermore, to support reconfiguration management, economic criteria are important as reconfiguration decision support can also be used as economical reconfiguration triggers. It should be noted, however, that the relevant economic criteria can differ greatly depending on the organizational level and must be taken into account [3], [11], [12].…”