Using immune designed ontologies to monitor disruptions in manufacturing systems.

•We rely on biological immunity to suggest a knowledge-based approach.•Immunity provides concepts and mechanisms to model, represent and deal with disruptions and risks.•We implement the knowledge-based approach using ontologies and a multi-agent system.•We consider a case study from the steel industry.•We show how the approach detects a machine failure, identifies inventory, production and quality risks, and suggests reaction decisions.