“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

Data models are, fundamentally, logical structures of named elements that have denotations (i.e. definitions) outside of that structure. The denotation may resort to another model (and model kind) or to natural language. A well-formed data model based on a well-formed modeling language will have an unambiguous structure, but its semantics will also depend on the quality and rigor of its basis element definitions.

In the past, this has proved problematic.

AS6969™ addresses the problem for quantities used in cyber physical systems. It provides a set of industry-reviewed, mathematically-coherent definition tables that can be referenced by their UUID or directly imported into the model. It also provides the structure for quantity domains to extend the core data dictionary for particular applications.

The UUID is a key concept for the AS6969™ Family of Dictionaries. The semantics of a named element is not determined by its label, but by the digital UUID. The labels used in models can vary according to the spoken language or industry jargon of the model stakeholders, according to the context of the models, or simply for stylistic/arbitrary reasons. The UUID means that within and between models semantic mismatches and equivalences can be more efficiently detected by engineers and tools.

AS6969™ is strictly concerned with the denotation and mathematical validity of technical quantities and measurands and does not limit the choice of data model language or structure.