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Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 16:00:44 -0500
From: mudcat@ie.utoronto.ca (Michael Gruninger)
Message-id: <9501252100.AA08763@richmond.ie>
To: srkb@cs.umbc.edu
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***********************************************
Enterprise Modelling in the Enterprise Integration Laboratory
University of Toronto
http://www.ie.utoronto.ca/EIL
***********************************************

In order to support enterprise integration, it is necessary that shareable
representation of knowledge be available that minimizes ambiguity and maximizes
understanding and precision in communication. Secondly, the creation of such a
representation should eliminate much of the programming required to answer
"simple" common sense questions about the enterprise. The goal of the TOVE
(TOronto Virtual Enterprise) project is to create a generic, reusable data model
that has the following characteristics:

1. provides a shared terminology for the enterprise that each agent can jointly
   understand and use,

   defines the meaning of each term (aka semantics) in a precise and as
   unambiguous manner as possible,

2. implements the semantics in a set of axioms that will enable TOVE to
   automatically deduce the answer to many "common sense" questions about the
   enterprise, and 

3. defines a symbology for depicting a term or the concept constructed thereof
   in a graphical context.

The TOVE reusable representation represents a significant ontological
engineering of industrial concepts.

Currently, our ontologies span: activities, state, causality, time, resources,
inventory, order requirements, and parts. We have also axiomatised the
definitions for portions of our knowledge of activity, state, time, and
resources. The axioms are implemented in Prolog and provide for common-sense
question answering via deductive query processing. Our future work focuses on
the development of ontologies and axioms for quality, activity-based costing,
and organization structures.

The following papers can be found at the Enterprise Modelling home page on the
World Wide Web:

1. Gruninger, M., and Pinto, J.A. (1995) "A Theory of Complex Actions for
   Enterprise Modelling", Working Notes AAAI Spring Symposium Series 1995:
   Extending Theories of Action: Formal Theory and Practical Applications, 
   Stanford.

2. Gruninger, M., and Fox, M.S., (1994) "The Design and Evaluation of 
   Ontologies for Enterprise Engineering", Workshop on Implemented Ontologies,
   European Workshop on Artificial Intelligence 1994, Amsterdam, NL.

3. Gruninger, M., and Fox, M.S., (1994), "The Role of Competency Questions in
   Enterprise Engineering" ,Proceedings of the IFIP WG5.7 Workshop on
   Benchmarking - Theory and Practice, Trondheim, Norway. June 94.

4. Fox, M.S., and Gruninger, M., (1994), "Ontologies for Enterprise Integration"
   Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Cooperative Information Systems, Toronto
   Ont, May 94.

5. Fadel, Fadi G., Fox, M.S., Gruninger, M. (1994) " A Resource Ontology for 
   Enterprise Modelling", Third Workshop on Enabling Technologies - 
   Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises , West Virginia University. 

6. Tham, D., Fox, M.S., and Gruninger, M., (1994), "A Cost Ontology for
   Enterprise Modelling", Third Workshop on Enabling Technologies - 
   Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises , West Virginia University.

7. Kim, H., and Fox, M.S., (1994), "Formal Models of Quality and ISO 9000
   Compliance: An Information Systems Approach", American Quality Congress (AQC)
   Conference, American Society for Quality Control, Las Vegas NV. 

8. Barbuceanu, M., Fox, M.S., (1994), "The Information Agent: An Infrastructure
   Agent Supporting Collabortive Enterprise Architectures", Appears in: Third
   Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructures for Collaborative
   Enterprises Morgantown, WV., IEEE Computer Science Press. 

9. Gruninger, M., and Fox, M.S. , (1994), "An Activity Ontology for Enterprise
   Modelling".

10. Fox, M.S., (1993), "Issues in Enterprise Modelling", Proceedings of the IEEE
   Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics , Le Toquet France, IEEE.

11. Fox, M., Chionglo, J.F., and Fadel, F.G., (1993), "A Common Sense Model of
   the Enterprise", Proceedings of the 2nd Industrial Engineering Research
   Conference , pp. 425-429, Norcross GA: Institute for Industrial Engineers.