NIIIP-SMART: an investigation of distributed object approaches to support MES development and deployment in a virtual enterprise

The National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP) consortium´s solutions for MES adaptable replicable technology (SMART) subgroup is developing an information infrastructure to enable the integration and interoperation among manufacturing execution systems (MES) and enterprise information systems within or among enterprises. The goal of these developments is an adaptable, affordable, reconfigurable, integratable manufacturing system. Key innovative aspects of NIIIP SMART are: Design of a standards-oriented configurable object model that represents the diverse aspects of MES. Application of distributed object architecture, work-flow, events, policy rules, intelligent agents, and knowledge management technologies to implement manufacturing and business procedures and policy. Product data exchange based on standard for the exchange of product data (STEP) and EXPRESS (ISO 10303), and enterprise resource planning interaction using open application group interface specification (OAGIS) business service requests (BSR)