An Ontology-Based Approach to Improve the Lead Time for Industrial Services

Inadequate data organization within a company can lead to decreased efficiency, increased costs, and extended delivery times. This is particularly evident in the internal electronic maintenance laboratory of a mining company, where disorganized data obstructs the conversion of information into actionable knowledge, negatively impacting delivery efficiency. This work focuses on the challenge of organizing dispersed, often tacit knowledge among a few employees and their neglected reports from the maintenance laboratory. Following the development of a specific domain ontology, the subsequent step involved creating a prototype system called FastMain, with the aim of significantly reducing the execution time for maintenance services. Preliminary results indicate that FastMain achieved an average 17% reduction in maintenance lead time. The implementation anticipates substantial benefits, not only in reducing component maintenance time but also in alleviating the costly process of hiring and training new employees. With FastMain, new employees can easily access maintenance information through troubleshooting searches, allowing experienced workers to intervene only when necessary. This approach expedites the learning process for new employees and diminishes the workload of experienced workers, enabling them to concentrate more on core responsibilities.