A new approach to ontological harmonisation in design

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Harrison, Neil Alasdair William and Whitfield, Robert Ian and Powell, Antony and Holliman, Alexander Frederick (2025) A new approach to ontological harmonisation in design. Proceedings of the Design Society, 5. 199 - 208. ISSN 2732-527X (https://doi.org/10.1017/pds.2025.10034)

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Abstract

How well a team can design something depends on how well their collective understanding comes together. In the design of modern complex systems this involves multiple conceptualisations of the system undergoing design. These perspectives become instantiated in a large volume of design description that is deep, wide and diverse. This must carry shared meaning reliably, which is impossible to assure if the ontology in which every statement is nested is left implicit and unmanaged. This paper outlines a technical approach to assure ontological harmony without necessarily or only employing formal semantically rigorous knowledge representations. It empowers an incremental investment in description coverage and ontological coherence, better supporting the spectrum of thinking styles and description needs that design teams encounter when taking on complex systems development today.

ORCID iDs

Harrison, Neil Alasdair William ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0961-3041, Whitfield, Robert Ian ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1065-0395, Powell, Antony and Holliman, Alexander Frederick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9511-8121;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)