Towards Interoperability between Functional Taxonomies Using an Ontology- Based Mapping

A functional model of an artifact shows an important part of designer’s intention. A taxonomy of generic functions plays a crucial role in describing such functional models. Improving interoperability among functional models of different functional taxonomies facilitates sharing functional models among designers in organizations. The mapping between the different functional taxonomies and the conversion of functional models based on this mapping are one of the ways to support such interoperability. Among the different functional taxonomies, however, there are not only terminological differences but also ontological differences implicitly. By ontological differences we mean the conceptual differences between taxonomies and the general structural differences between models. In this article, firstly we propose a framework for mapping between functional taxonomies using a reference ontology of function in order to bridge the conceptual differences. The reference ontology contributes to specify the ontological differences between the functional taxonomies. Second, in order to reduce the structural differences between the functional models, we discuss how to capture the modeling world. These results enable us to convert the functional models among different taxonomies. As examples of the functional taxonomies, we focus on the reconciled functional basis proposed by Hirtz et al. and our functional concept ontology based on Function & Behavior Representation Language.