Message-oriented and workflow-based inter-process communication for distributed manufacturing

In typical manufacturing information systems often the vertical integration and the inter-process communication are achieved by separate technologies. Though many standards like OPC and PROFINET simplify these tasks even with integration of standard PC hard- and software, they need at some points specific equipment. The system described in this paper implements Web service functionality to distributed production processes on standard PC hardware. The goal is to integrate them vertically into high level enterprise applications and at the same time to provide a direct inter-process communication over the same interface. Furthermore the process and workflow definitions are configurable at any time which makes the system flexible to any changes of the manufacturing process or information flow.