Querying multiple sources with OWL ontologies: an exploratory study in an automotive company

Abstract. Large companies often store information and knowledge in multiple information systems using various models and formats. A main stake is to retrieve the relevant knowledge for a specific concern. We present an exploratory study for a large automotive company faced to this problem. A first mock-up has been built using OWL ontologies and KAON2. Different questions arose during its development: how to organize the ontologies? How to communicate with knowledge sources? How to support the user for query formulation? Which languages and techniques to use? This paper presents the provisory solutions adopted and possible alternatives considered.

Reference: OWLED 2007
Authors
Pierre Mariot, Jean-Pierre Cotton, Christine Golbreich, Alain Berger, François Vexler