Antonio Zilli

Secure Collaborative Supply-Chain Management

The SecureSCM project demonstrates the practical applicability of secure multiparty computation to online business collaboration. A prototype supply-chain management system protects the confidentiality of private data while rapidly adapting to changing business needs.

Semantic Knowledge Management: An Ontology-based Framework

The massive quantity of data, information, and knowledge available in digital form on the web or within the organizational knowledge base requires a more effective way to control it. The Semantic Web and its growing complexity demands a resource for the understanding of proper tools for management. Semantic Knowledge Management: An Ontology-Based Framework addresses the Semantic Web from an operative point of view using theoretical approaches, methodologies, and software applications as innovative solutions to true knowledge management. This advanced title provides readers with critical steps and tools for developing a semantic based knowledge management system.

Chapter 13 Bottom-up extraction and maintenance of ontology-based metadata

Abstract In this chapter, several flexible techniques aimed at extracting, maintaining and enriching semantic-web style metadata are discussed. Such techniques were designed for being applied in the framework of dynamic Communities of Practice (CoP) interactions. Namely, we present a way of building ontologies that proceeds in a bottom-up fashion, defining concepts as clusters of concrete objects. Unlike huge, “supply-side” normative ontologies, our bottom-up ontologies are based on use of implicit and, therefore, parsimonious part-whole and is-a relations. This makes them suitable for the ad-hoc style of conceptualization used within communities of practice and peer-to-peer (P2P) communities. Also we discuss how metadata based on bottom-up ontologies can be associated with a flexible degree of trust by collecting user feedback. Our bottom-up extraction method complements current practice, where, as a rule, ontologies are built top-down. It is not claimed that bottom-up construction is a generally valid recipe; rather, the approach is intended to enrich the ontology developers palette when designing and implementing Semantic Web applications.

Managing Ontology Evolution Via Relational Constraints

Ontology-based modelling is becoming increasingly important in the design of complex knowledge management applications. However, many problems related to large-scale ontology development, deployment and collaborative maintenance of related metadata still remain to be solved. Making online modifications to an ontology whose concepts are simultaneously being used for metadata generation may potentially disrupt metadata semantics and even introduce inconsistencies. In this paper we analyzed and classified operations on ontology according to their impact on metadata. The approach is aimed at environments (like our own Knowledge Hub) relying on a relational database for storing ontologies and metadata assertions and it is based on the use of database triggers for automating metadata maintenance.

Ontology-Based Knowledge Management Systems for the New Product Development Acceleration: Case of a Community of Designers of Automotives

Knowledge management is important for the knowledge storage and organization. Otherwise information about new product development can be dispersed or lost, thus, finding efficient manners to store knowledge in order to be able to search for it and retrieve it is necessary. Ontology is a good solution for the structuring of information and knowledge and especially in specific cases as communities of practice.In this paper, we present the followed methodology for the modeling of the ontology and the technological architecture of a knowledge management system(KMS), based on this ontology, to facilitate knowledge sharing within special communities. The modeling technique is the IDEF0 methodology, the ontology is codified using the OWL language and the KMS is supported by the OC4J of the J2EE server.

Inter-organizational Processes: Requirements for Securing Data

Supply chains, built by the flow of goods and money between firms, are changing their nature into value networks, built on strategic and knowledge-based relationships. This phenomenon characterizes mainly complex product industries, i.e. aerospace, requiring long research and development projects.Strategic relationships are implemented by processes crossing organizational boundaries. To carry them out, data exchange is required, but this introduces risks, too. These risks can be faced by defining more accurate privacy management techniques and functionalities of inter-organizational platforms.In this paper some inter-organizational processes characterizing the aero-engine supply chains are discussed focusing on their security and privacy issues. They were explored thanks to the Italian aerospace company Avio. One of them, the supply chain planning process, involving high classified data exchange among all the firms in the value network, will be faced by the SecureSCM research project through cryptography and secure multiparty computation technology.

A framework for knowledge security in aerospace inter-organizational Network

The design of complex new aerospace products requires wide and deep collaborations among firms and in many cases also with competitors collaborating and, at the same time, protecting the valuable knowledge assets. In this context, knowledge protection means defining which knowledge assets must be shared and introducing policies and systems to protect them. Framed in the above premises, this paper presents the preliminary results of an on-going innovative research project i-Design Foundation (iDF) aimed to develop methodologies and technologies to support collaborative product design in aerospace value networks. Findings suggest an integrated organisational and technological framework describing: a) the modelling of collaborations scenarios of a network of companies involved in innovative projects; b) an architectural framework to protect the codified knowledge assets shared. The paper is of value for managers that can get insights in knowledge security mechanisms and technological solutions supporting the collaboration in wider innovative projects.

Integrating Knowledge Management Process inside New Product Development Phase: The Network Model

New product development, is interested in the management and discipline involved in the development of new product in some firms, which based on their experience of involvement in the process, after applying the network model the accumulation of knowledge and application of this knowledge is what to distinguish innovative firms from their less successful counterparts. One of the motivations of this large interest is justified by the fact that today successful new products are one of the main sources of competitive advantage for manufacturing companies. This paper suggests guidelines which describe necessary tools and methods to identify, and manage the development of collaborative accumulation of knowledge networks, organization that apply this methods are more efficient and more innovative than those that do not.