SCONTO: A Modular Ontology for Supply Chain Representation

Maria Marcela Vegetti, Alicia Böhm, Horacio Pascual Leone, Gabriela Patricia Henning

Keywords: SCOR, Supply Chain, Ontology, Interoperability

Abstract: Supply Chain Management (SCM) involves coordinating and integrating material, information and money flows, both within and across several companies. The integration of these flows is perceived differently by distinct communities, raising some semantics-related problems. In traditional industries as well as in the context of the recent Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing or cyber-physical systems initiatives, more efficient and effective integration of supply chain flows is required. This integration implies physical as well as application interoperability and a common understanding at the semantic level. For several years, ontologies have been considered the key technology to achieve semantic integration. So, this contribution introduces SCONTO, an ontology that formally describes a SC at various abstraction levels, by specifying its associated business processes based on the SCOR de facto standard as well as sharing a precise meaning of the information exchanged during communication among the many stakeholders involved in the SC. Moreover, SCONTO provides a foundation for the specification of information logistics processes and sets the grounds for measuring and evaluating a SC by stating different metrics and performance-related concepts.