'How to' advice for 'building' product data ontology design.

[Andrew Arnold]

Hello,

I'm seeking 'how to' advice for EDG representation of  products that are installed in buildings or at least a reference for how such data is represented in manufacturing, aerospace, or other domains.

Overview
Many products that are installed in buildings come in variety of configurations that are described by property-value pairs that describe required, optional and alternate product features.

Some product property values are class-valued i.e., the same value for all instances; some property values are the same for every instance of a product configuration; and other property values are distinct for every instance of a product configuration.

Designers typically select a product configuration from an enumerated list and place one or more instances of it in a building design. Builders procure, and place one more more real world instances of a product configuration in a building.

Question: what would be a best practice ontology design pattern for products, product configurations, and product instances?

Two possible design patterns
1. Create an ontology with Products and Product Configuration classes and their relationships. The difference between the two entities would be the enumeration of property-value pairs in a configuration.  
2. Create Product classes and specify configuration property range constraints as SHACL property shapes. Instance graph instance would be comprised product configuration instances.  

How's it been done in other domains like product manufacturing, aviation,.etc?

Is it possible to summarize  the advantages and draw backs of the approaches?

Example data
Product: Single-Swing-Door
A given door vendor offers 4 Width choices for a single-swing door, 1 Height choice, and 3 option choices for a Lite, which a glass panel, for a total of 12 configurations

Nominal Width and Height are required for procurement and installation. Lites are optional, and every  instance has a distinct serial number.

Width and Height choices
24" x 96"
28" x 96"
32" x 96"
36" x 96"

Lite options:  0 panels | 1 panel | 4 panels

Context
The information architecture of Autodesk Revit, the market leading Building Information Model (BIM) authoring application, includes:

• Product definitions that are called "Families" for example a parametric definition for of a kind of door like single-swing;
• "Family Types" that represent configurations of said product.

The Revit UI/UX permits a user to select and place one or more instances of a Family Type in a BIM.  Additionally, a Revit modeler  can specify family and instance properties, where Family Property values are set for a Family Type and instance properties are set for each instance of a Family Type placed in the BIM.

The complete data for the family types placed in a BIM is the union of Family and Family type property values for each instance.

Definitions
Product: a parametric definition of a product that describes required, optional and alternative properties and the range of possible values for each one.

Product configuration: a product configuration represents a product in terms of an enumerated list property-value pairs that are typically selected for produc procurement and installation in a building.

Product configuration instance: an installed instance of product configuration 

[TopQuadrant]

Hello,

While we're always excited to see how our customers are using and implementing EDG into their businesses and we certainly wouldn't discourage any fellow EDG users from providing advice or suggestions regarding your modelling question, since there is a lot of specificity here, this question might be a great candidate to be handled through a Professional Services engagement or through the use of Premium Support hours.  Please feel free to reach out to our Customer Success team at Custome...@TopQuadrant.com for a quote for either of those services.  Should you have any additional questions or concerns, and wish to discuss them privately, please feel free to email us at Sup...@TopQuadrant.com

Thank you for your understanding and have a great day.

Regards,
James Koban
TopQuadrant Support