Introduction

As the use of information technology in manufacturing has matured, the necessity for software applications to inter-operate has become crucial to the conduct of business and operations in organisations. To be competitive and maintain good economic performance, manufacturing organisations need to employ increasingly effective and efficient systems. Such systems should result in the seamless integration of manufacturing applications and exchange of manufacturing processes between applications. Organisations should also be able to preserve and retrieve on demand the knowledge contained in their business and operational processes, regardless of the applications used to produce and handle these processes.

Many manufacturing engineering and business software applications use process information, including manufacturing simulation, production scheduling, manufacturing process planning, workflow, business process reengineering, product realisation process modelling, and project management. However, each of these applications utilises process information in a different way, and each representation of process information inherent to these applications is also different. Thus interoperability is difficult to achieve. Consequently, these concerns have led to the development of a process specification language (PSL) that complements the process representations utilised in manufacturing engineering and business software applications. ISO 18629 provides a generic language for process specifications applicable to a broad range of specific process representations in manufacturing applications.

ISO 18629 provides semantics to the computer-interpretable exchange of information related to manufacturing processes. Taken together, all the parts contained in ISO 18629 a language for describing a manufacturing process throughout the entire production process within the same industrial company or across several industrial sectors or companies, independently from any particular representation model. The nature of this language makes it suitable for sharing process information related to manufacturing during all the stages of a production process.

The process representations used by engineering and business software applications are influenced by the specific needs and objectives of the applications. Therefore, the use of the process specification language also varies from one application to another. A major purpose of the Process Specification Language is to enable the interoperability of manufacturing processes between software applications that utilise different process models and process representations. As a result of implementing process interoperability, economies of scale are made in the integration of manufacturing applications.

This part and all other parts of ISO 18629 are independent of any specific process representation or model used in a given application. Collectively, they provide a structural framework for interoperability.

ISO 18629 describes what elements inter-operable systems should encompass, but not how a specific application implements these elements. It is not the purpose of ISO 18629 to enforce uniformity in manufacturing process representations. Objectives and design of software applications vary. Therefore the implementation of an interoperable application must necessarily be influenced by the particular objectives and processes of each specific application. This part of ISO 18629 provides an overview of the principal concepts contained in ISO 18629, and guidance on selection and use of its parts.

BS ISO 18629-1:2004

Industrial automation systems and integration. Process specification language - Overview and basic principles

Current, Under Review

Published:

31 Mar 2023