LOGISTICS-AS-A-SERVICE: ONTOLOGY-BASED ARCHITECTURE AND APPROACH

Abstract

Cyber-Physics System (CPS) is a relatively new term assuming tight integration of physical systems and cyber (IT) systems interacting in real time. Such systems aim at providing a flexible and extensible infrastructure supporting a variety of inputs (e.g. sensor-based and customer needs) and outputs (actuators or indicators/displays). CPSs rely on communication, computation and control infrastructures to provide for efficient utilization of logistics infrastructure resources. In this context, Logistics-as-a-Service (LaaS) is a logistics network of organizations, people, information and resources supported by service-oriented cyber-physical systems. Intelligent multimodal logistics network is an important node in the worldwide logistics, involved in moving a product from supplier to customer or providing an accompanying service. The paper presents a generic architecture for LaaS, which is based on representing elements of the logistics networks as services. In this environment, the role of an application ontology and integration of individual and organizational competences is investigated and the use of ontology matching for finding suitable resources in a multi-lingual logistics network is discussed