Towards an Ontology for Small Series Production

We describe the derivation of ontology to capture knowledge regarding small series manufacturing. This work is motivated by use-cases ranging from the assembly of large aircraft built from about 6 million parts to the production of galley inserts, both plagued by problems for arising from the same interplay between product and production engineering. During ramp-up stages of such production, there are challenges of innovative technologies, high quality and safety standards or the structural complexity of products which frequently cause supply-chain problems or require revisions of the designs that result in significant financial losses. These conditions differ significantly from standard production scenarios. Based on a detailed domain analysis, we identify five requirements for the type of knowledge to be captured in ontology, and then proceed to propose a first version of such an ontology addressing these requirements, thus providing an appropriate semantic base for intelligent, associative tools that can effectively support ramp-up management.