Reference ontologies to support the development of new product-service lifecycle systems

In competitive and time sensitive market places, organisations are tasked with providing Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) approaches to achieve and maintain competitive advantage, react to change and understand the balance of possible options when making decisions on complex multi-faceted problems, Global Production Networks (GPN) is one such domain in which this applies. When designing and configuring GPN to develop, manufacture and deliver product-service provision, information requirements that affect decision making become more complex. The application of reference ontologies to a domain and its related information requirements can enhance and accelerate the development of new product-service lifecycle systems with a view towards the seamless interchange of information or interoperability between systems and domains. This paper presents (i) preliminary results for the capture and modelling of end-user information and (ii) an initial higher level reference core ontology for the development of reference ontologies to ameliorate product-service lifecycle management for GPN.