Integrating information over the life-cycle of manufacturing equipment by assigning semantics

With semantic Web technologies being in the focus of manufacturing systems designers in recent years, different possibilities to facilitate plant processes have been analyzed. This paper takes a look on existing approaches and compares these with the demands that are given when dealing with automated information integration between different layers of the factory architecture and different phases of the equipment Life-cycle. In order to integrate information, the approach of semantically connecting different communication standards is considered. As a conceptual tool to fulfill the demands given, the use of ontologies, especially the Web Ontology Language OWL, is proposed. Finally, an idea for meeting the difficulties with heterogeneous shop floor ontologies is motivated.