Provider-Driven Knowledge Allocation Concept for Improving Technical Repair Tasks in IPS2 Networks ☆

Availability-oriented business models in IPS2 networks obligate providers to cooperate with several service partners that provide maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services in case of a machine malfunction. Currently, these partners, as well as customers, who operate the IPS2, barely have access to technical documents from the product development phase or to the knowledge of other parties within the IPS2 network. Additionally, traditional information retrieval approaches, which are currently state-of-the-art within MRO-related IT systems, render too many irrelevant results and are not suitable for efficient usage in heterogeneous data that differ in wording and structure because of the diverse nature of IPS2 partners. This causes long machine downtimes, as the service technician needs to inspect the machine locally by himself to find the cause(s) for the malfunction. The paper on hand presents a provider-driven knowledge allocation approach to overcome the aforementioned issues by a semantic repair assistant as the gateway to knowledge from all parties within the IPS2 network.