.15926M — methodology of our ISO 15926 implementation
December 9, 2010
There are not too many methodology (i.e. way of work) literature about ISO 15926 implementation in real engineering environment. This is due extremely complex nature of ontology-based standard. Like software with at least computer science, software engineering as a separate disciplines, ontology have “ontology science” and ontology engineering as distinct area of knowledge. Even management information systems as application-specific discipline can be reflected in it’s ontology-based mirror. Programming, modeling (as in MDA) and “ontologiing” is a very similar human activities and they are converging now. Look e.g. DDD (domain driven development) software engineering methodology.
We already have several hundreds of pages in typical “Ontology handbooks”. Now we should rewrite these to very specific ISO 15926 methodology with “science”, “engineering” and “application-specific” parts. I expect that .15926M will be no less than several hundreds pages, that is comparable to any “general” ontology handbook.
We will structure content of .15926M according to several methodology description-related international standards:
ISO 24744 as a metamodel for methodology description. This standard require depict all kinds of work products (artifacts, including models and documents), works (processes, life cycle models etc.), organization (people and tools) and languages with their notations. This standard will be accompanied by ISO 24774 that prescribe hierarchy and content of work description (ISO 15288 conform to this standard).
ISO 42010 require present all models in descriptions grouped by needed to stakeholders views that conform to their explicitly shown viewpoints.
ISO 15288 is about lifecycle processes of systems engineering. We will refer to this standard in application part of our methodology (we consider that in ISO 15926 we have not management domain up to date but systems engineering due to life cycle integration nature and process plant engineering as application field. This will be expanded in future, but “engineering accent” will rest even in management applications. Think about “organization engineering”).
“Ontology science” part of methodology will cover 4D extensionalism, class-of-class classifications, work with information representations entities, template lifting-lowering and template characterization methodology, logic constraints (rules), different diagramming techniques and text notations, difference between true “upper ontology”-based standards like ISO 15926 and other similar initiatives (like super-light ISO 12006-3). All implementation computer science specialties (EXPRESS, OWL, algebraic type representations, FOL and it’s syntax variants, queries and pattern matching, validation algorithms) will be here.
Ontology engineering (like any engineering) will be about ISO 15926-compliant schema development practice. Needs, requirements, architecture, coding, tools, development lifecycle, verification and validation, professional roles and overall ISO 15926 usage effort.
Application-related part of .15926M will be traditionally focused at process plant engineering domain (equipment catalogs, instrumentation templates, modified 4-level architecture of tag life cycle etc.). We hope also add to this some organizational engineering topics like presentation of methodologies (with .15926M presented in ISO 15926-compliant form as ultimate example). This part of methodology also will explain usage of .15926O (system thinking and methodology reference data that we developing in .15926 project — https://levenchuk.com/2010/11/14/dot15926-iso-15926-implementation-project/).
We are developing .15926M in Russian now but have plans to translate it to English.
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Anatoly Levenchuk's Runglish Blog 
December 10, 2010 at 17:12
Hi Anatoly,
Great write-up as usual!
The idea of the ISO 15926 is not to become the standard that contains standards, but rather the way to make other data models (of other standards, both engineering and data integration) to inter-operate.
By lack of other on-line ontologies in the subject area of engineering, it has a large reference data library at the moment but that should evolve into mapping (pointers at) other endpoints owned by standards that are published online by use of semantic web technology in the future.
Also, many models exist in engineering standards, for example IEC 62264 for enterprise-control system integration, that can serve as model for ISO 15926 object information models (or ontologies as you put it). I think those models would rather not be in books of many pages, but rather online as reference data expressed in specialized templates.
Agreed, these models will be extensive indeed, as the trade of engineering, construction, operation and maintenance is extensive.
December 10, 2010 at 17:42
Onno,
thank you for your attention to our .15926 initiative!
1. We think that there are 2 sorts of producers/actors: people and computers/robots. People need readable standards and methodologies, computers need formal semantic annotated representation. First step for .15926M initiative is to get human readable document that will help to organize work of engineering domain experts, yellow belt data modelers and engineering managers.
2. We not like use OIM term today (this is too object-oriented by nature as pointed to us by Johan Kluewer). We are not like word “ontology” because this is “the whole thing”. Nevertheless we need modularity in RDL building. We introduce word “ontolet” (it relate to “ontology” as “applet” relate to “application”) for domain-related templates set. Therefore we speak about ISO 24744 ontolet, ISO 62264 ontolet etc.
Sure, we start to develop ontolet for work product that needed for ISO 15926 implementation (mereology and different viewpoint counting for semantic network, schema, templates, ontolets, reference data, reference data item, reference data library etc.).
3. We think that it is important to have online not only ISO 15926 RDL with tons of ontolets, but available methodologies: what to do with these schemas, what professional capabilities we should require form experts, what tools we need etc. Therefore we developing not only .15926 software (server and editor) but methodology too. We will give to people not only text of all ISO 15926 parts and install supporting it software (schema and mapping editor, RDL and sandbox server), but “how to” instructional texts with it.