Knowledge Graphs for Efficient Integration and Access of Manufacturing Data

Achieving interoperability is a crucial factor for realizing the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) vision. In I4.0 different systems exist, and the demand for the creation of an integrated view using the existing data increases. However, interoperability between data sources is hampered due to different representation of similar processes or production parts. In this paper, we present a knowledge graph based approach for semantically integrating data sources in I4.0 scenarios. To tackle the problem of interoperability, we developed the Bosch Industry 4.0 Knowledge Graph (BI40KG). The BI40KG comprises a set of ontologies for describing common concepts and relations that can be reused in the domain. We present a general approach for using the BI40KG to semantically integrate data from different data sources in I4.0. The benefits of such an approach are manifold. Besides achieving interoperability, the semantics encoded in BI40KG allow for creating a common understating across I4.0 applications that are developed. In addition, KG based data integration enables effortless tracebility of product parts for production lines which in general is a tedious task. Two use cases are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the described approach.