Overview
The abridged version of the development process specifies the steps necessary to create ontologies based on an agile, iterative process. The process begins with collecting epics from working groups, users, and domain experts to guide development.
...
Technical Oversight Board
...
Epics
Working groups create or add Epics to the TOB and MAY add an Epic to the Working Group to organize user scenarios for each area of concern. The TOB checks cross-cutting concerns with each working group. The working group WG MUST link Epics to the TOB Epics.
...
An Epic is a significant development initiative that may span multiple releases and working groups. The Epic It aligns with a the industry's high-level need by the industry to provide some capability in the standard. It must be aligned also align with business objectives and provide someone with value or solve problems requiring an ontological approach.
...
The high-level topics and concerns the working groups need to address.
Known dependencies on this Epic by other groups and if other Epics are blocked.
An estimate of the complexity of the Epic.
The necessary stakeholders in each domain to create use cases.
Examples
Title: Supply chain resistance. The manufacturing supply chain needs to reduce the dependency on a single source of parts because of areas of vulnerability that prevent a surge in production or incur delays due to a lack of available capabilities. To address this problem, standards are needed to provide capability-based agile manufacturing support for dynamic just-in-time sourcing, planning, scheduling, and executing from the supply chain, engineering, and manufacturing processes across the industrial base.
Title: Lifecycle product data. The current manufacturing information systems cannot capture the lifecycle of products and all their parts to support the archival and retrieval of products across their complex mereological structure. To address this, the industry requires information across the entire product and lifecycle, including design, manufacturing, maintenance, and end-of-life, to understand how something was made and the provenance of the parts.
...
A usage scenario is a narrative providing a business need statement in the domain expert's language with additional context. All use cases scenarios in the issue repository are related as sub-issues of the Epic.
For stakeholders to avoid purely academic activities, all usage scenarios must reference a business-related need statement. A business value statement indicates how addressing the use case will increase profit or , reduce pain points, and improve efficiency, safety, or security.
...
scenario 1:
When I’m trying to schedule a job to run on my shop floor, I have some process requirements, designs, and equipment, but I need to find the right machine and make sure it’s available, in a usable state, and has tooling, and someone isn’t using it for some other process.
scenario 2:
As a supply chain manager, I need to find a company with an NAICS code to find a company with a certain classification to produce a part.
I need to find a pipe bending company certified for 3D bending of an O2 pipe in a submarine.
Competency questions associated with this story:
Find a company C that has NAICS code N for pipe bending capability P for 3D bending with attestation A from organization O that has evidence that the attention process verified capability P against standard S
SPARQL: …
Individuals: C, P, S, A, O
As a supply chain manager, what companies manufacture jet engine parts in my supply chain? I have an agile supply chain and want to find new companies that may not be in my current set of suppliers. How do I find a new company?
As a supply chain manager, I want to evaluate supplier efficiency and quality.
Competency Questions
A competency question is associated with one of the usage scenarios expressed in the use case,
with one or more sample answers and a description of how you expect to get that answer,
including but not limited to the relevant resources. The details provided for any competency
question should describe at least one way you expect to use the semantics and/or provenance to
propose an answer to the questions. Include an initial description of why the semantics and/or
provenance representation and reasoning provide an advantage over other obvious approaches to
the problem. (optional–depending on the use case and need for supporting business case).
...
Ontologies: Principles, Methods, and Applications
Scoping Requirements
This provides scope for developing the user scenarios, focusing on what part of the Epic we are addressing in the current development cycle and any constraints on the development process that may need to be considered when selecting the terms and ontological constructs. The requirements will not replace user scenarios or competency questions.
The scope provides the context and the rational for what we will be addressing.
Examples
What ontology terms are necessary for manufacturing a jet engine in my supply chain referring to User Scenario X
What terms are necessary for evaluating supplier efficiency?
Process for drilling down to scoping requirements.
We need to clearly differentiate competency questions from requirements. We should not use requirements as a replacement for competency questions.
Capture decisions made by the working group to scope and slice the ontology.
Specification of developing constructs. Functional and non-functional requirements regarding the development of the ontology.
Scoping decisions
What level of detail and constructs are available to meet the competency questions
Terminology Development
Construct Excerption
...