Schematic Architecture: Reference Architecture / Frameworks / Particular Models for the Shop Floor Environment

The concept of schematic architecture is introduced as a guide for the organization and systematic development of the set of concepts generally identified, indistinctly, as architectures or reference models in the literature. The difference, proposed by some authors, between reference architecture and reference model is shown as a basis for schematic architecture. In this paper, an analysis is given showing the relationship between the meanings of both concepts under the object oriented paradigm: generalization/specialization versus instantiation. The location, and relationship between these expressions, is shown as a instantiation hierarchy that simplifies (by means of bounding its space), not only the development and analysis of the reference architecture and the reference model but also its application to a given system in the form of a particular model. The proposed schematic architecture was used for the development of a reference architecture, a reference model (implemented in the form of a framework), for the production shop floor computerized control. The proposed system has been validated applying it to several particular production systems