=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2574/short2
|storemode=property
|title=Ontological Architecture for Knowledge Management – Applied to Global Parts Logistics (IBM)(short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2574
|authors=Sander Nijbakker
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/vmbo/Nijbakker20
}}
==Ontological Architecture for Knowledge Management – Applied to Global Parts Logistics (IBM)(short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short2.pdf
Ontological Architecture for Knowledge Management
Applied to Global Parts Logistics (IBM)
Sander Nijbakker1
IBM Netherlands
1066VH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
E: nybakker@nl.ibm.com
Abstract. For many years the Global Service Parts Logistics branch of IBM has
been struggling with the need for a world-wide integration of a rich variety of
relevant local database and information systems, from the national level up to
the intercontinental level. At the same time, managerial demands have been
continually expressed, pressuring to be able to produce performance-
measurement reports for management internationally on a regular, timely, glob-
ally standardized, and cost-effective basis. This paper shows that a global solu-
tion to this problem is provided by a foundational ontology-based architecture
for industrial service parts logistics. It is outlined how the philosophy of the
American pragmatist philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce provides the basics for
a principled and solid foundational ontology for (IBM’s) global service parts
logistics. This ontology-based approach to global service parts logistics has
been implemented in IBM's industrial practice. The underlying knowledge tax-
onomy is available, and has also been implemented in Protégé. More important
in industrial practice, the ontology-based approach presented in this paper has
been extensively applied in IBM performance management reporting projects,
showing improved systems integration as well as much higher productivity in
current management performance reporting. Specifically, the ontology-based
work reported in this paper resulted in a saving of 200K$, plus doing twice as
much as before, in half of the time.
Keywords: taxonomy, ontology, knowledge management architecture, indus-
trial service logistics, IBM
Introduction. Ontology based data retrieval
Although I work for IBM, in this paper I speak on my own terms, not necessarily
approved, nor disapproved by IBM. It is my personal initiative and endeavor in PhD
research, with same title.
In 1988 IBM Netherlands proposed to consolidate service parts logistics for Eu-
rope, also including a measurement-team, to discover reality by means of queries and
design measurements for management. The levels of management to be supported are
strategic, tactical and operational. During ten years multiple improvements were im-
plemented. One of the lessons learnt was that databases are optimized for database
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Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
management, but extracting the necessary data for management reports became cum-
bersome; taking too much time. All reports requested could not be created in one day.
Special tables just for reports were created and later also for cubes, giving significant
improvement from end user point of view. New continents are now becoming inte-
grated, and we have to deliver more reports with fewer workforces (cost reduction).
The dimensions of the cubes are the qualities/categories for the reports. The research
question became: Can we come up with a set of possible categories (ontology) of the
phenomena in reality (phenomenology), preventing interviewing all managers. Can
we specify some general categories (the most universal categories or Ontology – with
capital O), which can be used as a generic principle for the design of the structure of
the categories?
The method of research is to investigate the works of philosopher/scientist Charles
Sanders Peirce. Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) developed one of the most prom-
ising systems of categories. Since Peirce’s works offer a fundament for an evolution-
ary architecture (Sowa, 1995), he was selected to investigate further. Peirce reported
that it took him twenty-five years to reach a provisional conclusion (Kent, 1987). Of
particular interest are Peirce’s natural (real) classification of the sciences, containing
phenomenology (taxonomy), logical representation (ontology) [semiotics], and On-
tology [part of metaphysics].
The expected outcome is one principled ontology, applied as design principle, and
pervasive in all levels of (management) abstraction (strategic, tactical and operational
management). The wider implication is that the needed data resources can be created
as early as possible instead of ad-hoc on request, in other words – being prepared for
future requirements of management. The resulting vocabulary, or better knowledge
taxonomy functions as an ontology for data retrieval and resulted in a saving of
200K$, doing twice as much as before, in half of the time. The knowledge taxonomy
is implemented in Protégé.
1 Main principle, Peirce: fundamental ontology
Fundamental ontology is an ontology based on basic principles, serving as an essen-
tial component. Peirce introduces his categories and their theory in “On a new list of
Categories” (1867). Peirce’s categories (technical name: the cenopythagorean catego-
ries) are firstness, typical characterized as Quality of feeling, secondness as Reaction,
resistance, (dyadic) relation and thirdness as Representation, mediation. In the uni-
verse of experience firstness is about ideas, chance, possibility; secondness about
brute facts, actuality and thirdness about habits, laws, necessity (the way). This prin-
ciple division, of firstness, secondness and thirdness is applied to all the division in
the ontology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categories_(Peirce)).
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2 Strategic planning : ontology of mind as class hierarchy in
Protégé
Strategic thinking is an evolutionary continuous way of managing a business. Un-
less one can accurately measure current performance, it is virtually impossible to
know where improvements are needed or even possible, says IBM executive, Pat
McNabb (IBM; 1998; Business Strategy: Success Through Knowledge).
In 1988 IBM Netherlands started thinking on
the consolidation of all worldwide service parts
logistics locations. Software was developed:
Common Parts Procedures and Systems, but
how is it functioning in reality?
We have to inquire, by running queries (our
measurements). Streams of events (life experi-
ences) in reality become trains of thought. We
know reality (physical domain) only by inter-
pretation in our thoughts (psychological do-
main). The interpretation is a mapping between
the physical domains onto the psychological
domain. Most of our thoughts are unconscious;
through cognition we become conscious of
some thoughts. Consciousness can be divided
into feeling, willing and knowing. Strategic planning is about the same. Awareness
has an external scope, long range perspective, and focus on environment with targets
for trends an direction having key questions as where are we doing business and how
is it evolving. Management needs an understanding of the current situation versus the
whished for targets and have insight into trends about the progress made; are we
heading in the right direction? This knowing will guide what management is willing
to do or change. Willing is having knowledge of the strategic position.
3 Strategic management: foundational ontology with
continued example in Protégé
The strategic position map has three dimensions: What, who and how (Markides,
1997), which are striking similar to the definitions of knowledge: What: Area of in-
terest (aboutness) or ontological knowledge; Who: ontological order of knowledge
and How: ontology of knowledge.
The nature of dimensions of knowledge did
not change much during many centuries, from
Scholastics, a recent dictionary definition to
contemporary knowledge management. Three
dimensions of knowledge, as known by the
Scholastics, are ontological knowledge, onto-
27
logical order of knowledge, and ontology of knowledge. First, ontological knowledge
is knowledge of the being of things (aboutness), essences, of their social- and intelli-
gible relations. Second, the ontological order is a) the hierarchy between beings and
perfections; b) order, necessary and contingent, between beings or between their con-
stitutive parts; c) real order. Third, the ontology of knowledge is the study of being
and intentional nature of knowing rather than a study centering on the criticism of
knowing, sometimes used as a synonym for the theory of knowledge (epistemology)
(Wuelner, 1966).
Three dimensions of knowledge derived from the dictionary, looking up the defini-
tion for the word science (from Latin Scientia, meaning “knowledge”) are first, refer-
ring to classical antiquity, science as a type of knowledge that was closely linked to
philosophy. Second, science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes
knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Third, referring to modern usage, science that most often refers to a way of pursuing
knowledge, not only as knowledge itself, or epistemology (Webster, 2012).
Three types of knowledge in temporary knowledge management still use the same
dimensions as used by the scholastics and dictionary. If the essential phenomenon of
our domain is knowledge, then questions arise as “What is?” (aboutness), “How is
knowledge ordered?” and “How do I know?”, which forms the basis of epistemology,
the science of knowing (Smiraglia, 2014).
Fig. 1. Ontological commitment as universal knowledge architecture
Three-dimensional imagery is also found in Peirce’s natural classification of the
sciences: Comte’s hierarchical ordering in terms of decreasing generality becomes, in
Peirce’s scheme, a series of steps; the sciences at the top provide principles for those
below; not a single linear staircase, but a series of ladders related in a three-
dimensional array so as to exhibit the more significant relations of a logical depend-
ence among the sciences. The whole assemblage might be envisioned as a lattice – yet
another diagrammatic thought advanced by Peirce (Ketner, 1987). In this paper, we
focus on scientists working together (Wat-Is – Sociological) aiming to obtain results
(how is knowledge ordered – organization) and structure (How do I know – way of
knowing).
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4 Tactical management: core ontology with continued
example in Protégé
Science is understood in terms of activities of those who pursue it. At this broad level
it can be related to other pursuits.
Peirce thought people might fit into one of three groups (dimensions). First: those
who seek enjoyment; those are the
most numerous. Second: those who
lead lives of action and who aim at
achieving results; included are the
makers of civilization, the builders of
industry, and the wielders of political
power. Third: those whose lives are
directed to developing ideas and truth,
the scientist. A classification of the
sciences is not concerned with the first
two groups: the whole scientific enter-
prise falls within the third category.
Science, regarded as the activity of
those in search of truth, falls into the
category of mind (Kent, 1987). The
first group is about creative people
(disrupting), the second group about
order (organization), and the third
group about the structure and classification of sciences.
5 Operational management: domain ontology
In the logistics domain the elements of the normative sciences can be renamed: 1.
aesthetics becomes vision; 2. Ethics becomes mission; 3. Logical representation be-
comes documentation where the semiotics of Peirce is very useful.
We have to be careful with interpreting Peirce and not to confuse our current thoughts
with the intentions of Peirce. It is argued by Liszka, 2017 that the best interpretation
of Peirce´s aesthetics is a normative science of ideal ends. Peirce´s influences in this
regard include Plato´s notion of kalos, Friedrich Schiller´s The Aesthetic Education of
Man, and Kant´s notion of architectonic.
Ontological commitment to organization and knowledge management
An ontology defines the vocabulary that may be used to specify the queries and asser-
tions for use by independently developed resources, processes, and applications. On-
tological commitments are agreements to use a shared vocabulary in a coherent and
consistent manner. Agreements can be specified as formal ontologies, or ontologies
with additional rules, to enforce the policies stated in those agreements (Kendall,
29
2019). [Business-model]. Formalizing the ontological commitment means offering a
way to specify the intended meaning of its vocabulary by constraining the set of mod-
els, giving explicit information about the intended nature of the modeling primitives,
and a priory relationship (Guarino, 1994).
Fig. 2. Social layer - ontological commitment
What is important is what an ontology is for. Gruber and colleagues have been de-
signing ontologies for the purpose of enabling knowledge sharing and reuse. In that
context, an ontology is a specification used for making ontological commitments. We
use ontologies to describe ontological commitments for a set of agents so that they
can communicate about a domain of discourse without necessarily operating on a
global shared theory. We say that an agent commits to ontology if its observable ac-
tions are consistent with the definitions in the ontology (Gruber, 1992).
30
6 Application and business value
Adding organizational dimension to the social level resulted in the ontological
commitment, with at the center the commitment to deliver high performance (hence
measure the performances of activities).
Fig. 3. Architecture for ontology-driven Information System
7 Business Value / cost avoidance
(Argument from Practice: Value: Cost Avoidance)
In our project (Asia Pacific Brio to Cognos migration), capital is retained due to cost
avoidance to improved efficiency, common ground, common language, and improved
productivity. In modern business practice, two categories distinguish capital into two
categories of assets, intangible, and tangible. A striking example of intangible cost
avoidance happened at the initiation of the project. During the first orientation call
about the project, we explained the approach, organization, and structure derived from
the previous project and how this project fits-in. During the meeting, access was
provided to demonstrate the essence. The approach was approved during the first
meeting! In contrast with earlier attempts years ago, for which it took two years to
create a worked-out project plan, which, although approved, was sent to the waste-
bin. Another example of intangible costs is the value of improved decision making to
improve performance and the value of improved performance itself. The emphasis,
for calculation, is on the tangible category. Two comparable project are used to
demonstrate the business value (at a bare minimum).
31
Table 1. resources used in two comparable projects
Fig. 4. burn-down chart of the project
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