Integrating manufacturing database and equipment

Abstract

One of the important features of a manufacturing database is that it must be able to communicate effectively with the different elements at different levels of the manufacturing system. For instance, we need to transfer schedule instructions to certain equipment or machines to control the sequence of their operation; download NC programs to appropriate machine tools; capture real-time production data like the status of certain equipment or workin-progress etc. Therefore, in manufacturing database design we need to consider its method of communication with the equipment or other system elements and the related data structure in the database physical model. This paper presents the method of communication between an RdbNMS manufacturing database and the equipment or other elements in a CIM system via BASEstar and discusses how the data related to the equipment and elements are analysed. It also describes the mechanism for ensuring data integrity in the communication between the database system and equipment or elements of CIM system.