Summary
Purpose of product
Information Technology included in the product
Development of the product
At which market is the product aimed
Where and how has the product been used
Technical description of product
Project's reliability
What is available
Further information
SIP does not need integration expertise to be used;
Improvement and increase of production (Saving in time and money in a free of error way);
Accuracy in customised products (In a fast and free of error way);
Decentralisation of systematic decisions;
Increase of economic benefits;
After integration, the user environment will remain the same;
SIP is running in PC compatible (Operating system Linux) or IBM RISC6000 (Operating system AIX) hardware platforms. Clients can use SIP's services if they run in any platform supporting TCP/IP facilities.
SIP is available to be installed in industrial companies and in national/international R&D projects.
SIP is available for demonstration in UNINOVA, and has being demonstrated in Portugal (inside and outside UNINOVA) and other countries.
Because the developed product was supported by EU funding, minimal costs are involved (no costs for non-commercial usage).
The purpose of SIP is to achieve a standardised (STEP based - ISO 10303) Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) environment, that meets the manufacturing requirements and allows the introduction of CIM concept in industry, supporting and facilitating the progressive integration of existing or planned to be purchased heterogeneous tools' packages, in a realistic step by step way.
Systems Integration Approach
Distributed Systems / Networks
Data Bases / Knowledge Bases
Standard approach (STEP - Standard To Exchange Product model data - ISO 10303)
User interfaces
Automatic code generation (CASE)
Open Systems
Information Systems
Heterogeneous Software
The development of the product was made in an industrial/academic partnership.
Companies (SME preferred) living with integration problems.
Consulting and Software Houses interested in solving integration problems.
Research and Development organisations whose main interests concern Software Integration and Standardisation.
The product is used as a tool allowing easy integration of heterogeneous commercial software.
In our opinion all consulting, R&D, software houses, and general companies with problems of integration, are potential SIP users.
Historically, the first steps towards industrial automation were made through local initiatives of some company departments.
The formation of islands of automation led to an integration approach that was normally pairwise. This fast proliferation of "islands" is unwanted and is disadvantageous in terms of a global system.
When we consider industrial environments, where workers often use the same tool for a long time, stopping or changing one tool, even temporarily, causes disturbances in the whole system and consequently a production degradation. However, when we have a large set of tools, acquired with out a global system overview, an integration process must be considered.
The crucial question is how to integrate them, and a satisfactory answer has still to be found.
In 1984, ISO created the sub-committee SC4, with the following objective: "...to specify a form for the unambiguous representation and exchange of computer interpretable product information throughout the life of a product...". This standard was called ISO 10303, or STEP (STandard for the Exchange of Product model data), and includes a formal language for information modelling denominated EXPRESS.
A STEP standard-based platform for integration of applications (SIP), was developed by UNINOVA attempting to solve the industrial integration problems, with following requirements:
Support the integration (data exchange) of all existing and future activity tools, which are heterogeneous by nature;
Offer the possibility of product data exchange between different factories;
Provide a good approach for data modelling at all levels, using a standard;
Be reliable and efficient;
Enable the management of expertise knowledge related to specific activities, using a standard interface;
Allow interfacing to different standard languages (i.e. C, C++, EIFFEL, Object Oriented and Relational Data Bases).
The main objective when we are using SIP, is to develop a CIM environment that meets the manufacturing requirements and allows the introduction of the CIM concept in industry, in a realistic step by step way (Figure 2).
The goals will be reached by adapting existing applications selected in the market, and integrating product models, processes and resources in a global and standard information system.
SIP is fundamentally constituted of an Information Management System (IMS), an Information System Access Protocol (ISAP) and a Development System Tool Set (DSTS) - see figure 2.
The IMS handles the information based on a model (EXPRESS schema), elaborated previously. IMS is the kernel of the integration platform. It plays the role of an information server, supplying access to the data produced and consumed by external systems.
The following elements constitute the IMS: PISAP - Persistence Driver; MID - Meta-Information Dictionary; PDB - Product Data Base; EXPRESS MIS - EXPRESS Meta-Information Schema.
ISAP is related to the communication protocol. It constitutes the interface between external tools and IMS, allowing data exchange in a distributed way.
The architecture incorporates many of the concepts of Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) to bring productivity, flexibility and quality improvements. In order to realise this, we have adopted the suitable object-oriented approach for the design of the architecture, which allows a gradual integration of automated functions as they become available.
The SIP's Development System Tool Set (DSTS) components are:
An EXPRESS compiler (modelled himself in EXPRESS), that has the responsibility of processing Express schemata, check for lexical, syntactic and semantic error, generating the equivalent meta-information representation structure. Then, it makes the transference to the meta-information dictionary inside the SIP.
Vision and Editos, that allow edition and navigation through the STEP-based Information System. With these components it is possible to observe the neutral format description of a specific object, all the objects belonging to a cluster, or all the objects on the I.S. It is also possible to access the Express description of each type of object, since the meta-information is also asserted in neutral format. Because each object can have references to other objects, when select a reference it is possible to see the description of the referenced object. Using this procedure, we can navigate through all the related objects.
Genesis, a tool that generates automatically the front end for several programming languages. Every time it is necessary to integrate a new tool, a dedicated Application Dependent Module (ADM) has to be developed. The DSTS Genesis tool helps this task, generating code automatically. This code stands for a complete implementation of all entities described in Express schemata, generating automatically access primitives for the entities (for example those that make the data transference from/to SIP using ISAP). Front ends to C, C++ and ONTOS (Object oriented data base) are already done, Relational Databases access languages (SQL) are now in test, and EIFFEL front-ends are being considered.
Import/Export data tool, using neutral format (Part 201) it is another service offered by the platform. With this tool it is possible to send and receive from SIP the description of a cluster described in neutral format. In order to be able to maintain flexibility, SIP runs on several platforms (IBM PC compatible, IBM RISC 6000, work stations SUN), and uses TCP/IP as the communication protocol.
SIP has being presented to different industrial companies and R&D authorities (e.g., in the inauguration of the new European Center for Mechatronics - Germany, and in the International Express Users Group Conference, Greenvile-SC USA) with special interests.
The potential users of SIP are all industrial SME companies with satisfactory level of automation. SIP can help them to achieve successful integration applications results.
Platform's server, running in IBM PC compatible (Operating system Linux) and IBM RISC 6000 (Operating system AIX) systems.
EXPRESS compiler (only a sub-set of ISO 10303-11 is supported) and Automatic code generator (Genesis - C++), running in IBM PC compatible (Operating system Linux) and IBM RISC6000 (Operating system AIX) systems, although the code generated by Genesis can be use by other platforms and operating systems.
Editus, running in IBM RISC 6000 (Operating system AIX) systems. A version for MS-Windows is now in test. Expected availability on end of October 95.
Neutral format Import/Export data (ISO 10303-21), running in any platform and operating system which supports TCP/IP facilities.
Miguel Vital Email:mmv@uninova.pt
Pedro Sousa Email:pas@uninova.pt
Helder Silva Email:hs@uninova.pt
Ricardo Jardim Email:rg@uninova.pt
- EUROPE server, and on the server.
This server is under construction!!
please send comments to
mmv@uninova.pt
Updated: September 28, 1995