ManTIS Manufacturing Technology a Industrial Systems Task Force

Manufacturing Execution System Roadmap for the OMG MES/MC working group

Herein is all the information which constitutes the working draft of the roadmap for Manufacturing Execution System interface development for the OMG MES/MC working group.

Section I reviews the MES functional decomposition previously defined by the this working group as the basis for a roadmap. Section II captures the tactical plan developed at the Mesa meeting in January, 2000. Section III identifies the relationships between the the components of the decomposition and the elements of the tactical plan.

I. Previous Functional Breakdown of MES Space and Grouping Into Potential RFPs

Beginning with the MES RFI responses, the MES/MC working group developed a decomposition or functional breakdown of the MES area. The MES model from MESA International was a strong influence on this, initially. However, the decomposition evolved as the working group considered how to map the breakdown into RFPs for specific sets of interfaces. (The MESA model seemed to represent product categories, rather than a top down logical decomposition of MES functionality into orthogonal functions.) Below is a list of the elements of the MES functional breakdown, along with a set of groupings that represent the combined views of the MES/MC wg and ERP wg about what might make appropriate RFPs. No chronological or priority ordering has been determined for these groups. However, multiple levels of decomposition are shown for resource management functions.

  * Resource management    * Resource Allocation and Status      * Labor management      * Equipment management        * Materials management      * Product tracking and genealogy    (the following are grouped for one RFP)  * Dispatching Production Units  * Operations/Detail Scheduling  * Material Storage & Transport    * Maintenance    (the following are grouped for one RFP)  * Quality Management  * Performance Analysis  * Process Management    (could be merged with the above set)  * Environment, Health and Safety Management      * Data Collection     * Document Control  

Descriptions of these Functions:

Resource management

This is an aggregation of the functions required to track and manage all resources related to production. These resources include: labor, machines, tools, fixtures, materials and product.

Resource Allocation and Status

This function tracks resource status and maintains a detailed history. It ensures that equipment is properly set-up and that resources and other entities such as documents are available for a production activity to commence. The management of these resources includes reservation in support of the Operations/Detail Scheduling function.

Labor management

Provides status of personnel in an up-to-the-minute time frame. Includes time and attendance reporting, certification tracking, as well as the ability to track indirect activities such as material preparation or tool room work as a basis for activity based costing. It may interact with resource allocation to determine optimal assignments.

Equipment management

Provides up to the minute status and detailed history of production machinery and related production equipment if it is managed in the same way as machinery.

Materials management

Monitors and manages material flowing into and consumed (or transformed) by production processes.

Product tracking and genealogy

Provides the visibility to where work is at all times and its disposition. Status information may include who is working on it; component materials by supplier, lot, serial number; current production conditions; and any alarms, rework, or other exceptions related to the product. The on-line tracking function creates a historical record, as well. This record allows traceability of components and usage of each end product.

(the following three subfunctions are all involved in managing the flow (routing) of materials to resources in order to produce product.)

Dispatching Production Units

Directs workflow of production units in the form of jobs, orders, batches, lots, and work orders according to production plans and detailed schedule. Dispatch information is presented in the sequence in which the work needs to be done and changes in real time as events occur on the factory floor. It has the ability to alter prescribed schedule and/or production plan on the factory floor. Additions and alterations may include material preparation and handling, and process operations such as rework, recovery, and salvage. Dispatch also has the ability to control the amount of work in process at any point with buffer management.

Operations/Detail Scheduling

Provides sequencing of independent activities based on priorities, attributes, characteristics, and/or recipes associated with specific production units with the objective of meeting user defined performance goals. It is finite and it recognizes alternative and overlapping/parallel production activities in order to calculate, in detail, exact time or equipment loading and adjust to shift patterns.

Material Storage & Transport

Manages the movement, buffering and storage of materials (stock, parts and tools) and consumables. Such movement may be in direct support of process operations or other functions such as equipment maintenance or setup.

Maintenance

Tracks and directs the activities to maintain the equipment and tools to insure their availability for manufacturing and insure scheduling for periodic or preventive maintenance as well as the response (alarms) to immediate problems. It maintains a history of past events or problems to aid in diagnosing problems.

(the following three or four subfunctions perform their functions in similar ways but for different purposes/results )

Quality Management

Provides real-time analysis of measurements collected from manufacturing to assure proper product quality control and to identify problems requiring attention. It may recommend action to correct the problem, including correlating the symptom, actions and results to determine the cause. It May include SPC/SQC tracking and management of off-line inspection operations, and analysis from a laboratory information management system (LIMS) could also be included.

Performance Analysis

Provides up-to-the-minute reporting of actual manufacturing operations results along with the comparison to past history and expected business result. Performance results include such measurements as resource utilization, resource availability, product unit cycle time, conformance to schedule, and performance to standards. May include SPC/SQC. Draws on information gathered from different functions that measure operating parameters. These results may be prepared as a report, presented on-line as current evaluation of performance, or used to trigger alarms when derived parameters deviate from acceptable ranges.

Process Management

Monitors production and either automatically corrects or provides decision support to operators for correcting and improving in-process activities. These activities may be inter-operational and focus specifically on machines or equipment being monitored and controlled, as well as intra-operational which is tracking the process from one operation to the next. It may include Exception management to make sure factory personnel are aware of process changes that are outside acceptable tolerances. It provides interfaces between intelligent equipment and MES, possibly through Data Collection/Acquisition.

Environment, Health and Safety Management

Monitors, tracks and records characteristics of production which relate to environmental, health and/or safety standards. If parameters wander out of a specified health, safety and/or environmental range, the system will respond directly or via an operator alert to correct the condition.

Data Collection/Acquisition

This function acquires and updates production information used for product tracking, maintaining production histories, and other production management functions. It may use some combination of scanners, entry terminals, and software interfaces to manufacturing controllers and other software to perform this function. The data may be collected from the factory floor either manually or automatically in an up-to-the-minute time frame.

Document Control

Controls, manages and delivers information packages associated with the production unit, including work instructions, recipes, drawings, standard operation procedures, part programs, batch records, engineering change notices, and shift-to-shift communications. For example, it sends instructions to operators or recipes to device controls. It also supports editing "as planned" information and maintains version histories of specifications. It would also include the control and integrity of environmental, health and safety regulations, and information such as Corrective Action procedures.

II. Tactical Roadmap From Mesa Meeting

At the Mesa meeting we took a different approach. Building blocks were identified from OMG technologies which currently exist or are under development (a strategy of reuse). As the functionality provided by these building blocks became apparent, so did the need to specify new pieces to be added to specify viable MES components. This results in a roadmap which is more oriented toward specifically how to define MES component interfaces rather then what functions they should support. This roadmap had the following elements (not ordered, letter labels are for reference later in this document):

       Building Block                                      Mfg item?     Status    ------------------------------------------------     ---------     ------  A. Data Acquisition for Industrial Systems (DAIS)	  Yes      In Process  B. Workflow Resource Assignment (see bom/00-01-03)         No      In Process    C. Workflow Process Definition Language(see bom/00-12-11)  No      In Process  D. Organization Structure Facility                         No      In Process  E. Workflow Management Object Model revision             Probably     Future  F. Manufacturing Model Framework                           Yes        Future    Elaboration:    A. Data Acquisition for Industrial Systems (DAIS)   (https://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/Data_Acquisition_RFP.html)    This may create base data structures or data object models which could be   reused in other MES interfaces.  It also may provide machine interface  conventions which may become the basis for all communications with   shop floor devices and equipment.    B. Workflow Resource Assignment   (https://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/Workflow_RAI_RFP.html)    This RFP was issued at the Mesa meeting (January 14, 2000).  It is to  address the function of assigning resources (actors and other  resources needed to execute a workflow) for workflow execution.  Responders will need to address issues related to resource allocation  such as resource pools, shared -vs- unshared resources, consumed -vs-  reusable resources and perhaps even copyable resources.  This is  similar to concerns in resource management, dispatching, and/or  scheduling functions in Manufacturing execution systems.    C. Workflow Process Definition Language RFP  (https://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/Workflow_Process_Definition_RFP.html)    This is an RFP for a means to specify definition of workflow processes  and a standard encoding format to exchange these definitions.  It will  certainly have to address issues of resource specification which were  dodged in the RFP for B.  This will include capabilities,  specification by type, specification of a set of eligible resource  candidates, and out right identification of required instance.    The working group believes that the language resulting from this RFP  could be reused as a basis for a language for specification of   manufacturing processes.      D. Organization Structure Facility                           (https://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/Organizational_Structure_RFP.html)    This RFP was issued at the Cambridge, Mass meeting in Nov. 1999.  It  solicites specifications for a facility to define, navigate and  inquire about information regarding an enterprise's organizational  structure.  Since location in an organizational structure is a way to  specify a resource by type (or role), it provides a portion of the  information which may be used to specify a resource for manufacturing  processes.    E. Workflow Management Object Model revision  (Future)    In order to support notions of a schedule it will probably be  necessary to enhance the Workflow Management Object Model.  This could  be a manufacturing specific specialization.    F. Manufacturing Model Framework                             (Future)    Define a base extensible object model from which MES objects can be  constructed.  Must be sufficiently flexible to support the different  "Manufacturing Business Objects" used in different manufacturing  concerns.  This is needed to enable compatibility of MES software  components.    

III. Mapping of How to What

The following is an attempt to identify the relationship of the tactical work elements enumerated at the Mesa MES roadmap meeting (documented in section II of this paper) to the functional elements described by previous MES/MC wg work (documented in section I of this paper).

  A. Data Acquisition for Industrial Systems (DAIS)	        addresses Data Collection function  B. Workflow Resource Assignment        part of Resource Allocation and Status function       used by Dispatching Production Units (and with modification        by Operations/Detail Scheduling)  C. Workflow Process Definition Language       used by Dispatching Production Units and Operations/Detail Scheduling       process definitions specified in this language would be managed by         Document Control  D. Organization Structure Facility       used by Labor Management, Dispatching and Scheduling  E. Workflow Management Object Model revision       needed for Scheduling  F. Manufacturing Model Framework                                used by any function in order to support interoperability among        MES components and yet provide the flexibility necessary to allow        components to be adapted to different manufacturing sites and        diverse manufacturing domains.         

The nature of the relationships noted in the list above are described by key words and phrases such as: "addresses", "part of", "used by", "managed by", and "needed for". This should provide guidance on how a tactical work element would appear in an RFP or RFPs. The most interesting thing to come to light from this mapping is the need to add the Manufacturing Model Framework as a new MES RFP (functional element on the roadmap) or as a major requirement on our initial MES RFP.

Last modified: Wed Feb 14 13:27:18 EST 2001

Last updated on: 11/09/2007