March 20, 2026

Ontologies: How to make sense of the data explosions in process industries

17 minutes

The new digitalization era of the process industry is burying organizations

under a mountain of information. Data, like entropy, is always increasing, but there is no use collecting all these digital records if they drown in obscurity within an abandoned data lake. Industry leaders must learn how to make sense of all this information and transform it into revenue.

In today’s episode of the Industry Forward podcast, host John Nixon,

Global Vice President of Process Industries at Siemens Digital Industry

Software (Siemens) will speak with William (Bill) Hahn, Director of Solutions Consulting at Siemens. Their discussion shows industry leaders the digital transformations workflows they need to not only collect data but also make sense of it using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and visual communications via ontologies, simulations and digital twins.

In this podcast you will learn:

2:20 - Why industries must make sense of their exploding data

4:18 - Where various industries are with their data maturity levels

6:02 - What are ontologies

12:19 - How to extract value and revenue from real-world and synthetic data

John Nixon - Global Vice President of Process Industries at Siemens Digital Industry Software

Connect with John on LinkedIn

William Hahn, Director of Solutions Consulting at Siemens Digital Industry Software

Connect with Bill on LinkedIn

...more