This paper presents a linguistic framework for developing a formal knowledge acquisition method. The framework is intended to empower domain experts to specify information required by activities in design, engineering, manufacturing, and maintenance processes. The longer-term goal of the framework is to (semi-)automatically derive a data model from product information specified by domain experts. The framework for information specification is named the Product Information Specification (PIS) framework. The linguistic framework categorizes terms (`tokens') to define product information into six constituents, similar to the parts of speech in grammar, based on abstraction concepts of Knowledge Representation. Syntactic rules for combining these six constituents guarantee the consistency and the analyzability (computability) of the specified product information. A Context-Free Grammar (CFG) has been adopted for analyzing and defining the rules. The applicability and feasibility of t...
Ghang Lee, Charles M. Eastman, Rafael Sacks, Shamk