An integration architecture for process manufacturing systems

Chengen Wang, Yu Zhang, Guoning Song, Caowan Yin, Chengbin Chu
2002 International journal of computer integrated manufacturing (Print)  
Given the significant differences between discrete and process manufacturing industries, specific integration architectures are required to accommodate the unique characteristics of process industries. In this paper, an architecture that encompasses view models, flow models and O-O models is developed, which gradually specifies the evolving design details through successive lifecycle stages of process manufacturing systems. In the architecture, products are distinctly modelled to reflect the
more » ... act of product data and to facilitate the development of customized products. A combination of object and agent concepts is adopted for building the models of process manufacturing systems. System constituent elements are respectively modelled as two types of entities: namely the objects and agents. Objects are used to describe the passive constituent entities that possess no autonomy and conduct no functions, whereas agents are used to model the active entities that possess decision-making capabilities and perform operations on objects. One important advantage of the architecture is that it provides executable models at the implementation stage, which can be directly converted into application programs coded in object-oriented languages. Some models of the architecture are further discussed in depth and an information infrastructure based on CORBA standards is proposed for integrating the distributed data sources.
doi:10.1080/09511920110118768 fatcat:pczpiojxlngjvcev4vioazcydi