CCE: An Integration Platform for Distributed Manufacturing Applications

Within CIME environments, one continually comes across a multitude of different working practices, network devices, information systems and manufacturing technologies. This heterogeneous environment extends to individual enterprises and can have profound effects on the efficiency and effectiveness of an organisation, and often results in symptoms such as: long product lead times, poor visibility of the product and process status, high product inventory and work-in­ progress, low data integrity, etc., as well as incurring excessive infrastructure costs. Having to select an appropriate information system to help achieve the business objectives of anyone manufacturing enterprise can be an awesome task. During the 1980s, vendor-independent communications such as MAP (Manu­ facturing Automation Protocol) and CNMA (Communications Network for Manufacturing Applications) brought standard, open communications to computer controlled industrial devices, but this alone was not enough to satisfy the more demanding requirements of creating and maintaining manufacturing applications. In order to create manufacturing solutions that effectively utilise Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) it is necessary to look beyond the standard communications protocols to how and why applications are developed.

1 Introduction.- 1.1 Origin of the project.- 1.2 History and evolution of the project.- 1.3. Who should read this book.- 1.4. Organisation of this book.- 1.5. How to read this book.- 1.6. Acknowledgements.- 2 The Problem of Integration in Manufacturing Applications.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Automation, communication and integration.- 2.3 Problems integrating applications in manufacturing.- 2.3.1 Example 1: a production management system.- 2.3.2 Example 2: a material handling application.- 2.3.3 Summary of the problems.- 2.4 Partial solutions to the integration problem.- 2.4.1 Breaking the problem into subproblems: CIM reference models.- 2.4.2 A solution to heterogeneity: standardisation.- 2.4.3 Limits of standardisation.- 2.4.4 Making applications modular and reusable.- 2.5 The notion of application integration infrastructure.- 2.6 The CIMOSA approach to integration.- 2.6.1 The CIMOSA modelling approach.- 2.6.2 The three levels of integration in CIMOSA.- 2.6.3 The CIMOSA Integration Infrastructure.- 2.7 Requirements for an information integration infrastructure.- 2.7.1 Introduction.- 2.7.2 Two main classes of manufacturing applications.- 2.7.3 Requirements for the Integration Infrastructure.- 2.8 Summary.- 3 Architecture Overview.- 3.1 The CIME Computing Environment (CCE).- 3.2. The CCE-CNMA architecture.- 3.3 The components of the CCE-CNMA architecture.- 3.3.1 Communication services.- 3.3.2 Distribution services.- 3.3.3 Application services.- 3.3.4 Tools.- 3.3.5 Administration.- 3.4 The CNMA communication architecture.- 3.5 Summary.- 4 Communication Services.- 4.1 Transport services.- 4.1.1 Some basics.- 4.1.2 Transport protocol families.- 4.1.2.1 The Internet family.- 4.1.2.2 The OSI family.- 4.1.2.3 The NetBIOS family.- 4.1.2.4 The SNA family.- 4.1.3 Brief comparison.- 4.1.4 Transport programming interfaces.- 4.2 Transmission media.- 4.2.1 Some basics.- 4.2.2 LAN transmission media.- 4.2.2.1 Twisted-pair.- 4.2.2.2 Coaxial cable.- 4.2.2.3 Optical fibres.- 4.2.3 Selection of a transmission medium.- 4.3 LAN access methods.- 4.3.1 Random access: Ethernet, CSMA/CD.- 4.3.2 Token access: token bus, token ring.- 4.3.3 FDDI technology.- 4.3.4 Switched LANs.- 4.3.5 Fast Ethernet/Token Ring.- 4.3.6 Full duplex LANs.- 4.3.7 SONET/SDH.- 4.3.8 ATM technology.- 4.3.9 Selection of a LAN access method.- 4.4 LAN interconnection.- 4.4.1 Repeaters.- 4.4.2 Bridges.- 4.4.3 Routers.- 4.4.4 Gateways.- 4.5. Summary.- 5. Distribution Services.- 5.1. The client/server model.- 5.2. The producer/consumer model.- 5.3. OSI layers 5 to 7.- 5.4. Distributed computing: DCE and DDE.- 5.4.1. Introduction.- 5.4.2. OSF’s distributed computing environment (DCE).- 5.4.2.1. DCE client/server architecture.- 5.4.3. Microsoft’s dynamic data exchange (DDE).- 5.4.3.1. DDE Cold link.- 5.4.3.2. DDE Hot link.- 5.4.3.3. DDE Warm link.- 5.5. Object oriented technology: CORBA and OLE.- 5.5.1. Introduction.- 5.5.2. What is an object?.- 5.5.3. Object-oriented programming languages.- 5.5.4. Object-oriented system enablers.- 5.5.5. Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA).- 5.5.5.1. The OMG Object Model.- 5.5.5.2. The Interface Definition Language (IDL).- 5.5.5.3. The ORB Architecture.- 5.5.6. Object Linking and Embedding (OLE).- 5.5.6.1. Introduction.- 5.5.6.2. The OLE 2.0 Component Object Model (COM).- 5.5.6.3 Distributed OLE.- 5.6. Summary.- 6. Application Services.- 6.1. File access services.- 6.1.1. Overview.- 6.1.2. FTAM information model.- 6.1.3. FTAM functional model.- 6.1.4. FTAM service.- 6.1.5. FTAM standardisation and profiles.- 6.1.6. Benefits of using FTAM.- 6.2. Messaging (electronic mail).- 6.2.1. Overview.- 6.2.2. MHS information model.- 6.2.3. MHS functional model.- 6.2.4. The message transfer service.- 6.2.5. Benefits of using MHS.- 6.3. Directory access services.- 6.3.1. Overview.- 6.3.2. Directory functional model.- 6.3.3. Directory information model.- 6.3.4. Directory services.- 6.3.5. Benefits of using the Directory.- 6.3.6. CNMA Directory Service profile.- 6.4. Database access services.- 6.4.1. Overview.- 6.4.2. SQL information model.- 6.4.3. RDA functional model.- 6.4.4. RDA and SQL services.- 6.4.5. Benefits of using RDA.- 6.5. Transaction processing.- 6.5.1. Overview.- 6.5.2. Distributed Transaction Processing (DTP) model.- 6.5.3. Functional model.- 6.5.4. TP Service.- 6.5.5. Benefits of using OSI TP.- 6.6. Device access services.- 6.6.1. Overview.- 6.6.2. MMS information model.- 6.6.3. MMS functional model.- 6.6.4. MMS services.- 6.6.5. Benefits of using MMS.- 6.7. Fieldbus networks.- 6.7.1. Overview.- 6.7.2. Requirements for fieldbus communications.- 6.7.3. Fieldbus communication architecture.- 6.7.4. Fieldbus solutions and standardisation.- 6.7.5. Benefits of using fieldbuses.- 6.8. Summary.- 7. Migration Tools.- 7.1. Introduction.- 7.2. Main features of the NIK.- 7.3. A Network Integrator at Work.- 7.4. Design of the Network Integrator.- 7.5. Summary.- 8. Network Management.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. The Network Management Model.- 8.2.1. Organisational Model.- 8.2.2. Functional Model.- 8.2.3. Information Model (Managed Objects).- 8.3. Architecture of the CNMA Network Manager Platform.- 8.4. Network Management Application Services.- 8.4.1. Configuration description.- 8.4.2. Configuration control.- 8.4.3. Configuration examination.- 8.4.5. Network Monitoring.- 8.4.6. Event Displaying.- 8.4.7. Fault Diagnosis.- 8.4.8. Problem Displaying.- 8.5. Benefits of using Network Management.- 8.6. Summary.- 9. The CIME Computing Environment (CCE).- 9.1. Overview of CCE.- 9.2. The CCE object model.- 9.3. CCE distribution mechanisms.- 9.4. Properties of CCE.- 9.4.1. Distribution.- 9.4.2. Openness.- 9.4.3. Transparency.- 9.4.4. Data consistency, transaction management.- 9.4.5. Modularity.- 9.4.6. Extensibility.- 9.4.7. Configurability.- 9.4.8. Availability.- 9.4.9. Security.- 9.4.10. User friendliness.- 9.4.11. Software reuse.- 9.4.12. Use of existing applications.- 9.4.13. Example.- 9.5. CCE Execution environments.- 9.5.1 Windows/DDE.- 9.5.2. The OSF DCE.- 9.5.3. On Line Transaction Processing.- 9.6. CCE services and Application Program Interfaces (APIs).- 9.6.1 Functional servers.- 9.6.2. Access servers.- 9.6.3. Information servers.- 9.6.4. Interface library.- 9.6.5. Application independent APIs.- 9.6.6. Application dependent APIs.- 9.7. Tools for CCE.- 9.8. CCE administration.- 9.9. Example: the Aérospatiale pilot.- 9.10. Summary.- 10. Relationships with Other Initiatives.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2. ESPRIT CIMOSA.- 10.2.1. CIMOSA integrating infrastructure.- 10.2.2. Relationship between CIMOSA and CCE.- 10.3. ESPRIT COMANDOS.- 10.3.1. Introduction to Comandos.- 10.3.2. Comparison between Comandos and CCE.- 10.4. ESPRIT Delta-4.- 10.4.1. Introduction to Delta-4.- 10.4.2. Relationship between CCE-CNMA and Delta-4.- 10.5. ESPRIT TT-CNMA and IT-CIM.- 10.6. ESPRIT FICIM.- 10.6.1 Introduction to FICIM.- 10.6.2. Relationship between FICIM and CNMA.- 10.7. MAP.- 10.7.1. Introduction to MAP.- 10.7.2. Relationship between MAP and CNMA.- 10.8. FAIS.- 10.8.1. The project and the architecture.- 10.8.2 Relationship between FAIS and CNMA.- 10.9. Summary.- 11. Conclusions.- 11.1. The problems experienced by manufacturing enterprises.- 11.2. The problems with developing distributed manufacturing applications.- 11.3. So how can CCE-CNMA help to solve these problems?.- 11.4. Benefits of the CCE-CNMA technology.- 11.4.1. Main benefits for the application developer and system integrator.- 11.4.2. Main benefits for the end-user.- 11.5. Industrial Achievements.- 11.6. So what of the future?.