PDM-based virtual enterprises-bridging the semantic gap

Describes the experiences which itm has gathered by participating in a European aircraft project. In the first part, the problems of introducing standards-based integration of PDM (product data management) systems within a virtual enterprise are described. It is demonstrated that a principle reason for these problems is the semantic gap between the interpretations of information objects managed in common by the participants. The second part of the article introduces an approach to reducing the semantic gap by addressing in a requirement engineering process, the specific inter-company aspects of data-sharing and data-exchange