(A) Modeling framework for manufacturing system integration : process-based approach

Abstract

The task of modeling in a manufacturing environment centers around controlling and improving the flows of material. In representing the behavior of manufacturing systems, however, modeling perspectives vary with the needs of operations improvement and information system build-up. Moreover, use of many different modeling constructs is indispensable to represent a variety of models. Accordingly, it causes redundancy, mismatching, and difficulties in reuse and change management, of modeling output. The modeling issue makes the manufacturing system integration more difficult. One research stream of modeling is to develop a conceptual modeling framework for a unified modeling of the material flows and control information system. This dissertation presents a conceptual modeling framework called IMF-M (Integrated Modeling Framework for Manufacturing systems) which would manage a variety of models in an integrated way with physical material focus as well as control data focus. IMF-M also incorporates operations improvement and information system perspectives. To enhance readability and change management of modeling output, it is based on the advanced modeling principles including formal, declarative and executable representation scheme, top-down approach, object-oriented conceptual blackboard, dependency graph, and model repository. IMF-M is comprised of object model, activity model, and process model. In this dissertation, the modeling constructs are defined based on the set theory to present a formalism of the modeling framework. The object model captures structural aspect of manufacturing systems and has a role of conceptual blackboard which supports model sharing, reuse, and integration. Object schema and object-relationship diagram provide a formal data model to represent the object classified into material, resource, and information. The activity model describes a variety of functionalities within manufacturing system using activity schema. Mathematical models a...