In: International Journal of Productions Research, Vol. 37, No. 8, pages 1767-1786. 1999.
Abstract: This paper introduces an approach to achieving business integration within a manufacturing system based on executing models of system behavior that describe important aspects of coordination within the system. The strategy for demonstrating the approach is to combine formalisms derived principally from CIMOSA and Petri nets into an engineering workbench where models (of `what' the integrated manufacturing system is expected to achieve and `how' the system can achieve it) are executed. An important aspect of the work is to enable modeling and simulation to be consistently performed using the same set of models that are used to construct the run time system. As part of this overall support, this paper details the results obtained from the realization, application and evaluation of the engineering workbench, particularly in regard to its support for modeling and simulation.
Keywords: COMISA, Petri nets, business integration, manufacturing processes.