Industrial Internet: Towards Interoperability and Composability
specific circumstances (i.e., case-based reasoning, analogical reasoning). Local compatibility is a
simpler problem. While we have to tie descriptions to a common viewpoint, each component can
work with whatever description they find best suited to their behavior. We do not have to
represent ‘how to tie a shoe’ as a language problem, but as a sequence of visual steps, for
instance. What other components need is metadata about such descriptions so they can reason
generically about their content without having to understand them in detail. This is very similar
to how humans work together in society: I do not have to understand how to assay gold, for
instance, to be able to use it as a store of value. I can rely on some expert in the community to
tell me how pure the gold is before I buy it. Similarly, we need to be able to represent what it is
that the analytic will do or discover and the limitations thereof, without having to reason over
how it gets done. Existing projects, such as DMDII’s43 Digital Manufacturing Commons is already
creating such an ability to connect together disparate models (e.g., solid, mathematical
continuous, discreet, XL, etc.) to help bring together communities around manufacturing. There
is no reason an analogous approach, suitably generalized and upgraded, would not work within
the Industrial Internet as well.
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June 2016