Editor. M. Zelm, Gehenbuehlstr. 18A, D-70499 Stuttgart
The CIMOSA - News is published by the CIMOSA Association. The CIMOSA News will report on CIMOSA applications, evolution of its technical specification, advancements in standardisation and related items. Contributions from other parties are welcome. The CIMOSA - News will be printed periodically and is also available in the internet at the dedicated WWW server http://cimosa.cnt.pl/News/
ESPRIT Project 21859 is a project jointly lead by the CIMOSA Association and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, Contact J. Nell <nell@nist.gov>). The project is sponsored by the FIAT comp any together with the IFAC and IFIP organisations.
The draft for the material to be used as guidance for and in the different workshop has been distributed to the technical committee members. The following themes have been proposed for the workshops :
Distribution has been made via the NIST Web server http://www.nist.gov/workshop/iceimt97/. This server together with an e-mail exploder will support the technical committee members and the workshop p articipants as well as being used for information distribution to the public at large.
Invitations and relevant information for the different workshops will be send out during February to workshop candidates. The workshops are to be held during March-June 1997. The workshop results will be presented in a concluding conference ICEIMT97 to be held in Turin, Italy, October 28 - 30, 1997 .
Exception handling within the CIMOSA modelling methodology has been investigated by Silvia Messina (Contact : silvia.messina@di.epfl.ch).in her thesis. Several enhancements for the definition of exception handling have been proposed : a more consistent concept, identifications of the mechanisms that can raise exceptions, classifications of CIMOSA specific exceptions, identification of design issues and solutions to support exception handling mechanisms in cases like unavailability of a resource, interruption of an activity or inaccessibility of a process. The proposed exception handling mechanism has been validated in the context of an industrial application at Magneti Marelli (for details see next paragra ph). Using a representation with SynchCharts enables a rigorous description of process behaviour.
Magneti Marelli Ricambi, a supplier of FIAT has developed a model of their entire spare parts distribution system to be used for simulation and decision support. The target is to reduce system costs, improve the service quality, reduce supply time and improve the flexibility of parts supply (Contact : reyneri@mains.fiat.it). The model of the distribution system - split into a logical system and a physical system - includes customers and suppliers, internal war ehouses, warehouses of external enterprises, and the transport enterprises. The model is represented as a single domain with up to six levels of processes. Enterprise Activities are defined in nine object classes and can be customised according to the spe cific behaviour of a process. The model employs objects of all four CIMOSA model views and can react to a number of exceptions via an exception handling facility. Model execution is supported by the modelling tool Prime Objects capable of building and sim ulating operational models of processes and systems. The tool is marketed by Prime Soft, Turin/Italy (Contact : bruno@polito.it)
The PRIMA project (EP 8234) has the objective apply the CIMOSA modelling methodology for the analysis and modellisation of continuous processes typical for enterprises in the chemical industry. A continuous process can be considered as a simple event d riven process whose activities are mostly control type activities with many requirements for exception handling. An approach has been proposed to represent exception handling in continuous processes with CIMOSA modelling constructs. Some co-operation with the project is foreseen.
The first design of modelling of the printing production domain at Burda - the large German print media producer - has been completed. Production is run in three shifts, with a mix of continuous processes performed on highly automated complex equipment , control processes and event driven support processes involving specialists and low skill workers organised in teams The production domain model consists of the domain processes production preparation, printing, tool supply, production support and commun ication. The model will be used to simulate process variations in order to evaluate savings in equipment/tool utilisation, set up time and human resource utilisation . The Petri net based modelling tool PACE is employed. Other upcoming research work is em phasising analysis and modelling of communication processes as well as new applications of data base co-operation via intranet and internet (Contact : http://www.darif.fh-offenburg.de).
The results of the QCIM project, 'Quality with CIM', the German initiative for development accompanied standardisation have been summarised in a book (Reference : published by DIN at Beuth Verlag, Berlin , ISBN 3-410-13716-5) titled 'Succesfactor Integ ration - methods and solutions for information management' by J. Pirron, IPA-FhG Stuttgart (in German). The book is structured in aspects of integrated systems : the methods, industrial applications, the concepts and the ultimate vision. It emphasises the idea of standardised concepts, namely a methods framework, an unambiguous terminology, the integration of function and data models and organisational/economic aspects. Todays standards for exchange and management of data, information or models like STEP, CRDS or CORBA do not yet support universal information interchange. The book describes the QCIM project results of modelling application scenarios in simultaneous engineering, in production control and in quality management. The resulting models have bee n mostly represented in EXPRESS-G and mapped on the IEM (Integrated Enterprise Modelling) methodology. The book provides a clear summary of the challenges and the benefits of enterprise integration.
The thesis of Silvia Messina (Reference : thesis number 1566 (1996) EPFL Lausanne) titled: 'Exceptions and Events in a Manufacturing Environment', describes the work done to provide consistency and integrity in an enterprise model defined with the CIM OSA methodology and in the CCE (CIME Computing Environment) platform model. Consistency and integrity has been provided by enhancing the CIMOSA and CCE models with exception handling and event management facilities. (See more details in the previous parag raph CIMOSA modelling) A new approach for the unambiguous specification of CIMOSA process behaviour using the synchronous approach is discussed. The event management facility of CCE is extended by providing support for conditions, actions, subscriptions a nd notifications. The application to a real industrial scenario demonstrates the feasibility and the effectiveness of the enhanced CIMOSA model. The efficiency of the enhanced CCE event model has been proven by comparing its performance with the measured performance of a commercially available CCE platform.
Initial modelling studies have been made with FirstSTEP (™ Interfacing Technologies, St.-Laurent/Quebec) a business process modelling and simulation tool. Results show that consistent CIMOSA models can be built in a short time providing remarkable simu lation results due to various analysis functions for process lead time, cost, resource utilisation and organisational responsibility. A new version of the tool will be available in February 1997 . For more information contact M. Zelm.
A two days seminar on CIMOSA has been prepared. The seminar covers enterprise modelling and integration, tools and modelling applications with demonstrations as well as standardisation. A pilot was held at ITEM-St.Gallen University to present CIMOSA an d FirstSTEP. The first full seminar is scheduled at ADITEC Aachen in February 97. For more information contact K. Kosanke.
'CIMOSA - a primer on key concepts, purpose and business value', provides an overview on enterprise modelling, applications and business benefits.
Computer Assisted Tutorial 'CIMOSA Modelling', for interactive learning and training.
The CIMOSA Association is involved in promotion of CIMOSA, its active support in national, European and international standardisation and in consolidation of the evolution of its technical specifications. Members of the CIMOSA Association are industria l and research organisations involved in exploitation of CIMOSA or interested in the subject of enterprise integration (EI).
www-cimosa@cnt.pl, 26.01.1997 (last update: 26.01.1997)