Degen, Heller, Herre, and Smith (2001) postulate that every
domain-specific ontology must import an upper ontology to use as a framework for
concepts which are broader than the domain-specific ontology. The Bunge-Wand-
Weber (BWW) system defines a number concepts for data entities such as Thing,
Things have properties, Things have states and Coupling (Rosemann & Green,
2000). There are a number of other upper ontologies such as the DOLCE system.
Importing these ontologies into an information system using domain-specific ontologies,
act to introduce richness into the definition of the world described in the
ontology (Colomb, 2005).
Gruber (1993b) introduced the theory that the quality of an ontology could be evaluated
using five objective concepts: (1) clarity, (2) coherence, (3) extendibility, (4)
minimal encoding bias, and (5) minimal ontological commitment (pp. 201-202).
Figure 1. A model of an ontology for the Australian timber and wood products
industry
T mberProducts
Un tOfSale
PackUn t SquareMeter L nearMeter P ece
sSoldIn
Attr butes
SoldAs Pack
RandomLengthPack SetLengthPack CutToLengthPack StandardM xedPack
Spec es
Hardwood Softwood
Dress ng
Construct on
Sol d F ngerJo nted MDF
SurfaceF n sh Treatment Prof le
Grade
Durab l ty V sual Strength
Dryness S ze SI-system
Meter M ll meter
SIConvert
partOf
representat on representat on
Length
W dth
CrossSect on
sPreparedIn
He ght
Nom nalS ze
No
Yes
BrandName
Development of an Ontology to Improve Supply Cha n Management
Copyright ?© 2007, Idea Group Inc.
Pages:
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749