171 A METHODOLOGY USING DOMAIN ONTOLOGY AND SOA FOR BETTER INTEROPERABILITY IN AEC MASS CUSTOMIZATION Antonio Grilo 1 , Ricardo Jardim-Goncalves 2 , Adolfo Steiger-Garcao 2 1 Faculdade Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, DEMI, Campus FCT/UNL, Portugal 2 Faculdade Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Dep Eng. Electrotécnica - UNINOVA, Campus FCT/UNL, Portugal ABSTRACT: Today, the OMG’s Model Driven Architecture (MDA) makes available an open approach to write specifi- cations and develop applications, separating the application and business functionality from the platform technology. As well, the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) establishes a software architectural concept that defines the use of services to support the requirements of software users, making them available as independent services accessible in a standardized way. Together, these two architectures seem to provide a suitable framework to improve construction company’s competitiveness through the adoption of a standard-based extended environment, challenging and enhanc- ing the interoperability between computer systems and applications in industry. Nevertheless, Domain Ontologies (DO) have been recognized more and more as a challenging mechanism to bridge knowledge. The paper, after illustrating the general motivations the construction companies have to adopt open architectures to achieve interoperability for extended and collaborative enterprise practices, presents the emerging model driven and service oriented architectures. Then, it describes an innovative methodology for better interoperability in AEC mass customization. The paper finishes with discussion and concluding remarks concerning the empirical results obtained from the pilot demonstrator. KEYWORDS: interoperability, mass customization, domain ontology, SOA, MDA. 1 CONVERGING MASS CUSTOMIZATION AND LEAN CONSTRUCTION As companies reverse their traditional market push sys- tems to market pull systems, it is the consumer who drives product configuration requirements (Robertson 1998, Simpson 2005). Mass customization requires that the value chain’s primary and secondary activities are linked together dynamically according to the product and customer profiles. These links need to be seamless estab- lished and error free. Since clients require highly specific product or specific requirements, companies must be able to design products that both satisfy clients and are easily manufactured (Liker 2004, Cusumano 1998). Thus, prod- ucts must be designed to manufacture. Mass customization principles promote the individual possibilities and unique features for the customer, and this must be supported accordingly by design, production and sales processes. To compete in a mass customization strategy, companies must have capacities, competencies and resources to cope with evolving product configura- tions, variable output frequency and dynamic customer profiles, providing thus product and services that will differentiate from commodity type of products (Pine 1993, Guilmore 1997). Diverse solutions have been con- sidered to sustain these business demands, like product platforms, modularity, commonality or postponement (Anderson 1997, da Silveira 2001, O’Grady 1999). These solutions imply greater efficiency of internal business processes, and effective coordination mechanisms be- tween its different functions. Lean construction is a research field that aims to reduce waste and maximize value in AEC projects that has been adopted mainly by contracting firms (Arburu and Ballard, 2004). Work on lean construction field has tended to fo- cus on process tools and IT solutions to identify and minimise uncertainty and hence improve the workflow of production (Soini et al, 2004). Indeed, the effective in- formation communication between the various parties of the construction project, necessarily requiring information integration between the various functions and specialties during the project life-cycle, is seen as fundamental to support the deployment of lean construction approaches. For the past ten years, several product-oriented ap- proaches have been advocated to fulfil the goal of IT inte- gration in AEC projects (see e.g. Alshawi, 1996). How- ever, recent studies have shown that the level of IT inte- gration within companies’ value chains is not achieved properly yet (Prodaec, 2004), if the wide scale informa- tion integration required for a systematic true lean con- struction approach. Lean management and mass customisation pose business processes that can only be fulfilled if not supported by specialised computer applications, together with automa- tion in the production line. To achieve agile and flexible response, these applications need to be integrated. Com-