Semantic Facilitation and Integration Layer for Process and Automation Engineering

Looking at Process and Automation Engineering (P&AE) today, there are many different tools available to support the engineer in his work from translating engineering intentions, via describing modules, to defining entire process plant setups, for export to a control system. As of today, the tools to support these steps are rarely linked to each other and hence do not allow to communicate with each other or exchange knowledge or data. Therefore, we came up with the idea of the Semantic Facilitation & Integration Layer, SemFIL, an ontology-based software system and architecture, to overcome tool, knowledge, and data silos, and to facilitate integration of and interoperability between applications, especially in P&AE. In this work, we present and evaluate the concept of SemFIL, and how it allows to connect and integrate all P&AE tools into a powerful, comprehensive, integrated workflow. We conclude with a discussion of the proposed SemFIL, and list required efforts for as well as advantages from its implementation. Lastly, we give an outlook on the most relevant future research questions and directions.