Interoperability review highlights fragmented standards and the need for a connected future
A recent review that looks at interoperability within the materials and manufacturing sector has been published in The Journal of Industrial Information Integration. Although several reviews have been published on this topic, this review takes a broad look at the barriers to interoperability with regards to data from a European perspective.
Vast swaths of data are created within materials science and manufacturing. Enabling all this data to be understood and re-used across systems is an enormous barrier to being able to make the most of the knowledge it contains. This review analysed the breadth of work taking place and the differences that exist between everyone’s interpretation of interoperability.
A figure showing the current interoperability landscape covered in the review article. Reprinted from the Journal of Industrial Information Integration, Vol 51, Chiacchiera S, et al., “An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing: Definitions, classifications, requirements, and recommendations”, 101116.
Defining moment
When the authors looked at how interoperability was expressed across research and industry, they found a surprising variety of definitions. The review compares 18 definitions of interoperability, 22 classification schemes and 15 definitions of semantic interoperability, identifying 65 different interoperability types overall.
To support the transition towards Industry 5.0, interoperability will be crucial for the effective and efficient use of semantic technologies and knowledge representations, so current conflicting terminology and incompatible frameworks are impractical. Future systems will require stronger collaboration to allow people and automated systems to work together more effectively. Therefore, real interoperability, in which information retains the same meaning across platforms, is becoming increasingly important.
Standard issue
The review highlights that even when FAIR guidelines are being implemented, its flexible interpretation results in incompatibility issues. Here, the authors recommend more precise terminology and definitions alongside robust coordination initiatives. For improved data re-use, ontologies and controlled vocabularies will become essential, particularly as emerging technologies and digital twins add additional layers of complexity for standardisation.
Overall, the outlook is optimistic. Interoperability is an evolving and significant challenge. Even so, the considerable human efforts to support standardisation across Europe together with greater use of semantic technologies and shared data will provide support for future digital manufacturing systems.
An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing: Definitions,
classifications, requirements, and recommendations
was written by Silvia Chiacchiera, John Breslin, Ana Teresa Correia, Jesper Friis, Emanuele Ghedini, Gerhard Goldbeck, Martin Thomas Horsch, Mohamed Hedi Karray, Bjørn Tore Løvfall, Jinzhi Lu, Ilaria Maria Paponetti, María Poveda-Villalón, Arkopaul Sarkar, Umutcan Serles, Ilian T. Todorov, Noel Vizcaino, Lan Yang and Francesco Antonio Zaccarini.
An analysis of interoperability in materials and manufacturing_paperThe version of record of this review is available here.
Acknowledgement
This work is a development and extension of a deliverable for the OntoCommons project, D3.8 – Report on the finalized Review of Domain Interoperability. This work has received funding from the European Commission under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme GA No. 958371 (OntoCommons), Horizon 2020 GA No. 953163 (DOME), Horizon Europe GA Nos. 101137725 (BatCAT) and 101091687 (MatCHMaker), Research Council of Norway RCN 309584 (SFI PhysMet), and Research Ireland Grant 12/RC/2289_P2 (Insight).
