A fuzzy ontology based approach for mobilising industrial plant knowledge

Semantic Web technologies - ontologies in particular - aim at efficient access to heterogeneous, distributed knowledge. However, current ontology languages such as OWL cannot properly address uncertainties, inconsistencies or contradictions. Fuzzy ontologies have been proposed to fix these shortcomings and further enhance information retrieval. The domain of industrial process plants faces many knowledge management challenges. Knowledge in e.g. the form of written reports is stored in different systems, but retrieval is often ineffective and reuse therefore limited. This paper presents an attempt at applying a fuzzy ontology for searching reports of past situations of interest at a process plant. The aim has been to get richer search results from a knowledge base by extending the query with fuzzy neighbour concepts.