Dear Workshop Program Committee,
Please find an abstract of my contribution to Joint Workshop on Standards for the Use of Models that Define the Data and Processes of Information Systems to be held in September at Bellevue.
Thank you for your coordination.
With best regards,
Standardization plays a crucial role because manufacturers seek distributed and autonomous manufacturing environment to achieve high customer satisfaction and rapid development of products. Many standards focusing various aspects of information systems for manufacturing are being developed. To make these standards conform to each other, a reference model of manufacturing systems is required. The concept of virtual manufacturing environment (VME) is introduced as the reference model.
VME provides a framework of totally computerized manufacturing system and has three layers that are application specific objective systems, basic component models and fundamental models. An application specific objective system is generated by combining basic component models. Every component model is composed from fundamental models that represent generic information on objects and activities in manufacturing. Important areas of standardization for inter- operability between different systems include the contents of fundamental models.
The frameworks of the construction and use of VME-based systems are also discussed in the paper. The former includes generation of application specific objective systems such as representation of models, viewing mechanism and libraries. The latter includes levels of communication interface such as application, data and function exchanges. Standardization is necessary to facilitate these activities, too.
In summary, this paper presents a reference model for standardization of information systems in manufacturing through the concept of VME system.