By KC Morris and Serm Kulvatunyou, Systems Integration
Division, NIST
Ontologies for industrial problems have been a topic of
research for several years. Recently
they are also appearing in activities by consortia groups working on standards. These efforts, though overlapping, have been
disjoint. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a
single place, a foundry, to go to find a community-vetted ontology suitable for
your industrial needs or at least as a starting point for your work? That was exactly the topic of the workshop at
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) last December when a
group of industry, government, and academic researchers met to discuss the possibilities
for such a place.