Information systems for integrated manufacturing (INSIM)

The authors present a mechanism for the control of information flow between each of the key manufacturing applications software at the factory level, including computer aided design (CAD), computer aided process planning (CAPP), manufacturing resource planning (MRP II), and shop floor control (SFC) systems. The goal is to demonstrate the viability of achieving the integration and the control of information flow, using generic operations on generic entities. CAD, CAPP, MRP II, and SFC can be integrated together through a general distributed database management system (DDMS). The knowledge-based system (KBS) described, drives the DDBMS to control the information flow, following procedural rules, constraints, and other guidelines derived from the company policy. The proposed methodology for the design and maintenance of a KBS to control the functional relationships and information flow within the integrated system is depicted. The KBS uses Petri nets with the ability of validating the KBS systematically