Situating domain ontologies in a general, long-term, diachronic information technology framework helps us to understand better their role in the evolution of information. This perspective provides some innovative insights into how they should be built.

This presentation shows a foundational ontology that aims to underpin a range of enterprise systems in a consistent and coherent manner and takes data-driven re-engineering as its natural starting point for domain ontology building. It has two closely intertwined components, a foundational ontology and a re-engineering methodology.

The origin and predominant area of application has been the enterprise. Suitability has been demonstrated in many industrial projects across a range of business domains including finance, oil and gas, and defense.

Overview

• Currently work in a niche area:
  
  • ontologies for operational system semantic interoperability – integration
  • think integrating enterprise SAP and Maximo operationallyhave been working here for a while (since late 1980s)
  • not many (any?) other people working here
• Believe that:
  
  • there are opportunities for architectural (radical and disruptive) innovation in this and other ontology area
  • at this stage, the approach in my area needs to be agile
  • that premature standardisation could stifle the innovation
• Want to suggest that:
  
  • there is a need to balance the conformity (of standards) with the agility needed to produce innovation
  • the balancing involves recognising when to standardise,
  • so, recognising when there is premature standardisation
  • it is not yet time to standardise in my area