Discussing the applicability of a process core ontology and aspects of its internal quality

A well-engineered strategy should specify and integrate three capabilities: process, method, and domain terminology specifications. The domain terminology of different strategies should be based on reference vocabularies. Thus, a process ontology should be a common reference since it considers cross-cutting concerns for different domains. This paper defines and represents the main concepts of a process ontology. This process ontology is placed at the core level in the context of a five-tier ontological architecture, where at the top of it there is a single foundational ontology. The practical use of a foundational ontology is to semantically enrich the lower-level ontologies. For example, an ontology at the foundational level can enrich a process core ontology. In turn, the ontologies at the lower level of a core one, such as those at the domain level, can benefit from reusing and extending the core concepts. Therefore, a process core ontology can be considered as a reusable resource to semantically enrich domain ontologies. In an attempt to discuss the applicability of the developed process core ontology, this paper illustrates the semantic enrichment of two top-domain ontologies. By using the process ontology—and other core ontologies—as common terminological references, the domain ontologies used in the different strategies are conceptually harmonized. In this way, strategies ensure terminological uniformity and consistency, thus facilitating the understanding of process and method specifications. In addition, the built process core ontology is compared with another process core ontology concerning its ontological internal quality. Then, recommendations and actions for improvement were performed.