5 Use Cases Of Laces Ontology Manager

Organizations in the built environment are constantly exploring the potential of automation for reducing costs and increasing productivity. One of the recent developments is that organizations are leveraging an ontology to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Such ontologies are rapidly becoming foundational in enabling informed decisions in the modern business landscape.

Ontologies are formal representations of knowledge and are used to define concepts, categories, and relationships within a domain. Ontologies provide a shared understanding of a specific subject matter, facilitating communication and reasoning. They help companies to make the most of their data as their assets increase, allowing a large-scale digital transformation while limiting complexity and lowering data management issues.

They reduce data processing costs by:

• allowing business teams to spend less time navigating and finding data, 
• opening the door of using the same information a multiple times, 
• reducing mistakes thanks to consistency in language and data quality.
• and offering a single source of data. 

Keep reading to learn more about the role ontologies play in business operations and explore their most impactful use cases.

5 use cases for an Ontology

The desired nature of an ontology depends on the purpose for which companies use it and how they use it. We can distinguish five purposes or use cases.

1. Uniformity

Ontologies allow everyone within the same team or project to use the same standardized terms, definitions, and attributes for objects. Engineers, for example, can use an ontology to look up the meaning of things, refer to a specific standard, and avoid any miscommunication. Engineers are just one of many examples of groups that may derive value from using this ontology purpose.

2. Reusability

Another impactful use case of ontologies is that they allow everyone in the organization to use a standardized framework for capturing knowledge and data once and then use it multiple times. For instance, several individual applications can reuse a standardized decomposition of a complex system (such as master data).

For instance, if you make an ontology available for reuse, engineers can publish standard product components for their co-workers to use.

3. Distribution

Centrally managing, sharing, and publishing an ontology enables its application to different software solutions via the Internet. For this purpose, there is a use case for publishers, who can publish specifications of products and their parts. 

Also, manufacturers can use an ontology to publish an online product catalog for potential clients, while engineers can publish design components to be shared with the team. These are just a few examples of use cases that become possible.

4. Integration

If you’re aiming for this purpose, your ontology data can be interlinked and enriched with other sources, while users can query it as a coherent whole. 

For example, a contractor can enrich an ontology with their client’s classification system to deliver usable data to customers, and a maintenance officer can retrieve product manuals from suppliers by navigating through their asset information.

5. Intelligence

In this purpose, your ontology contains logic that allows computers, without human influence, to derive information automatically. For example, this makes it possible for publishers to use software to check if standards are consistent and coherent. Asset owners, on the other hand, can use ontologies to gain insight into asset performance by aggregating project results.

How you can start

As your data volume expands and your number of applications increases, leveraging an ontology becomes a valuable cost-cutting tool.

If you’re interested in embracing the cases outlined earlier, you need a solution that streamlines ontology development and management. With the Laces Ontology Manager, you gain the ability to create, manage, and publish (as Linked Data) ontologies, structure data, and establish connections with other relevant data sources or libraries, including specification libraries.

Industries such as construction, water management, and shipbuilding can realize cost savings and enhanced production through automation, with the adoption of an ontology playing a pivotal role in ensuring data uniformity, reusability, and interoperability.

Interested in exploring the capabilities of Laces Ontology Manager? Schedule a demo or engage with one of our experts to discover how it can contribute to the growth of your business.