ManTIS Manufacturing Technology a Industrial Systems Task Force

Index

• New!
• Current work
  • Current Discussion Paper
  • Model Driven Architecture Discussion
    • Orlando, June 2002
    • Yokohama, April 2002
• Past activities
  • None

Organization

"MDA in Manufacturing" was initiated in Anaheim as an ManTIS Plenary Project

Charter

Model Driven Architecture in Manufacturing Discussion
The ManTIS will be formulating its framework for MDA over the Yokohama and Orlando meetings (April June 2002). We will begin our new RFPs from the Roadmap in Orlando. Among the goals of the ManTIS MDA Framework are:

• All the usual benefits of MDA including multiple platform message transport options going beyond the CORBA only orientation of the past.
• Low-Cycle Time: As a stretch goal, we would like to see RFPs with an "RFP Release to Initial Submission" time on the order of 90 days.
• Many Small Specifications: To achieve the low cycle time, many small and possibly over-lapping specifications must be possible. At the same time, broad, spanning specifications such as the successful PDM Enablers V1.3 should also be possible.
• Coordination through Reference Model: Although each RFP will have its own Platform Independent Model, the RFP PIM will be primarily a scooping mechanism, mapped from some "Master PIM". This will assure that the small, overlapping specifications are semantically consistent.

Work group co-chairs

To date this work is being done in plenary under the ManTIS chairs. When it is time for spin-off tasks, this may become a working group and chairs will be elected.

Contact information

The MDA discussion is being held on the Manufacturing mail list, mailto:[email protected]

New!

21 October 2002

• MDA Discussions Continue in Helsinki

Current work

Current Discussion Paper:  Revision 20020608, mfg/2002-06-01

Model Driven Architecture Discussion

Helsinki, October 2002

In a Monday PPE Working Group Breakout the MfgDTF Model Driven Architecture Framework whitepaper draft (mfg/2002-09-03) was reviewed. Larry Johnson went over the recommendations, summarizing the discussion. An updated whitepaper will be drafted for the Washington DC meeting, where we hope to issue the paper.

Orlando, July 2002

MDA Discussion Breakout

Principal Discussion Participants:

• Russ Claus, NASA
• Ron Hare, GE Aircraft Engines
• Sridhar Iyengar, IBM
• Larry Johnson, MSC.Software
• Uwe Kaufmann, Fraunhofer IPK
• Steve Marney, EDS
• Jishnu Mukerji, HP
• Tomokatsu Okuya, Denso IT
• David Price, Eurostep
• Jon Siegel, OMG

It was proposed that the MDA whitepaper should become [part of] the new charter of the ManTIS describing what we do and how we coordinate with other standards groups such as ISO & IEEE

• ISO TC184 SC4
• DMSO
• OAG
• NIST
• … (consult with Jamie)

Liaisons:

• In the whitepaper we should mention examples of those that are perceived to have important technology to bring into the OMG using an MDA mapping approach
• In the charter we should mention examples briefly and underscore the importance of tapping and collaborating with external sources.

A possible task would be to take all of the ISO STEP standards and make an operational interface standard and then bring the interface standard back to STEP. This would lead to a harmonized suite of standards.

Define a reference model that aligns well with STEP information models. In the OMG, create a reference model to map between the two.

From these reference models, we would like to scope out of the reference models the pieces necessary to execute one or more end-to-end use cases. An example of this is the usage of a PDM system by a CAD system in the context of design tasks.

The first RFP should be narrowed.

Versioning: PIMs -> PSMs -> Product vZ. As versions of the PIM progress, there needs to be traceability of what elements were used in the old PIM so that a decision can be made as to whether to ripple that into the project.

We will need to make recommendations to the appropriate group about the version control and usage mapping across PIM/PSM/Application models. And we will need to do at least an absolute minimum of this as necessary to manage the ManTIS models themselves until someone comes up with the more general pattern/solution.

Candidates:

• Implementing a bill of material with a View capability, presuming that the view capability can be reused in other contexts.
• PDTnet - small set of use cases derived form the German automotive industry that implements an XML based access to remote PDM system(s).

There was considerable discussion of what the OMG Mechanism for a coordinating reference model could be:

• Jon Siegel, OMG VP, suggested that the reference model could be made to be part & parcel of the roadmap. A disadvantage is that a roadmap is a well defined concept in the OMG and we would be "overloading" it. However, this remains a possiblity
• Sridhar Iyengar, IBM (member of the Architecture Board) suggested using the usual RFP mechanism. The reference model would by the Platfrom Independent Model (PIM) that could be used by other RFPs. The required Platform Specific Model (PSM) would be the XML model of the schema provided under XMI, permitting the exchange of the model and of instances.
• Jishnu Mukerji, HP (also member of the Architecture Board) thought the use of the RFP mechanism to be inappropriate. Jishnu suggested that the reference model should be a whitepaper which can be required by a submission in order to create it initially, and conformance to which can be required in other submissions. All submissions can be invited to direct how the reference model should be changed to accommodate the submission if necessary.

MDA, EXPRESS, And EXPRESS-X to the Cross Domain Working Group meeting

David Price of Eurostep Group, AB delivered a presentation on MDA, EXPRESS, And EXPRESS-X to the Cross Domain Working Group meeting on Sunday, 23 June 2002. The presentation can be found at ormsc/2002-06-01

• Already working EXPRESS to UML mapping in STEP (ISO 10303-25)
• Studying the idea of MOF model of EXPRESS
• Mapping of UML to EXPRESS is not yet a standard. Such a standard would be useful in mapping a PDM PIM into an EXPRESS PSM, for example. This will be important for the ManTIS MDA Framework
• PDM PSM in EXPRESS has a defined mapping to the PDM Schema via the current standard "EXPRESS-X"

Yokohama, April 2002 (exerpted from minutes)

All future ManTIS RFPs will be done under the OMG's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). A significant amount of time was therefore devoted during the ManTIS plenary sessions to discussions about MDA as it is applied to the manufacturing domain. A white paper titled “ManTIS MDA Framework” will be written in which the results of discussion from Dublin, Anaheim and Yokohama will be consolidated as a starting draft. The following bullets summarize the main points and observations from the discussion held in Yokohama.

• In discussing a model for bringing MDA into manufacturing, it was mentioned that Life Sciences has defined a DTD PSM by reverse engineering UML from existing XML work, and mapping the UML to the original XML. Candidates for this approach within manufacturing include:
  • MatML, which can be used as a material PSM model, from which UML can be derived. Various services can later be derived from the UML.
  • STEP work, including PDM, Configuration Management, Variant Management, CAD Geometry, Systems Engineering, Product Lifecycle Management (i.e., PDM + Life Cycle), Printed Circuit Board, Plant Engineering.
  • POSC (Process Plant, 15926 + Reference Data Libraries)
• It is important to specify the “ground rules.” That is, when to use one rather than the other (ala mfg/1999-10-04). For example, one would not use STEP or other “exchange” approaches for web services.
• Whether a model is a PIM or PSM depends on one’s point of view. What is the platform? That which is independent of it is a PIM, and that which implies or relies on it is a PSM. One always needs to specify what the platform is. Consequently, a model can be a PIM in one context (platform) and a PSM in another.
• When drafting an MDA RFP one can specify what the platform is that differentiates a PIM and PSM in the context of the RFP. Alternatively, the RFP may request the submitters to supply one.
• One must be careful to specify in the RFP and further clarify in the submissions as to what is normative and what is informative so that the examples are not confused with definitive constraints, and vice versa.
• The derivation of the scoping PIMs from the reference model must be made with greater clarity. One suggestion is to use UML to describe the specific use and context of PIMs and PSMs within ManTIS. This would be a framework in which we execute the ManTIS Roadmap.

PDM Enablers V2.0 RFP to be Recast as MDA RFP’s

The first MDA RFP the ManTIS will issue will be for a Product Information Model Platform Independent Model (PIM²), which will be a superset reference model to be used for PDM Enablers and other platform specific PDM related implementations. The RFP will call for the PIM to make the relationship to STEP AP214 and STEP PDM Schema part of the standard, and to specify an XML PSM.

There is some debate about how to make the relationship to STEP AP214 and STEP PDM part of the standard. Lutz Lämmer suggests UML profile. David Price suggests Part 25 mapping EXPRESS into UML. That is, the mapping would be made by feeding the PDM Module Suite ARM into Part 25, thereby deriving the UML as a PSM. The mapping between that UML PSM to the PDM PIM would be the mapping we were going to do as a follow up to the STEP/OMG Harmonization white paper. It was noted that the STEP ARMs could be viewed as PSMs or PIMs in OMG depending on how one looks at them. Given the STEP flavor, they should probably be regarded as PSMs in the OMG.

The problem statement for the RFP is essentially taken from PDM Enablers V2.0, with the addition of mappings to other STEP family of related standards. The RFP calls for the explicit mapping that is normative. As it stands, there is difficulty in identifying the harmonized common subset of both standards, and resolving the unnecessary burden for implementations that need both capabilities (i.e., data access via interfaces and data exchange via STEP). Beyond STEP, there will be the capability to map to other technologies. This helps answer the questions customers have on preserving their investment across emerging and changing technologies.

To summarize, the RFP is basically recasting the PDM Enablers V2.0 RFP as an MDA RFP, suggesting a “scrubbed” UML model for the PIM. The PSM that is being requested is an XML binding that is Part 28 compliant. The “Part 28” model of the AP214 CC8 is suggested. The controversy is that this results in a different XML DTD from the one based on the AIM.

Past activities

None.

Last updated on: 11/09/2007