Applying an Integrated Analysis Method to Develop a Shop Floor Control System

The fundamental concept of computer integrated manufacturing is to integrate the information flow, material flow and control flow of the whole manufacturing enterprise. One major task, which might be required during the integration process, is to model the related enterprise activities. Currently, the most common method of modelling automatic manufacturing systems is to describe the system from organisational, functional, information or process points of view. Many tools or methods have been developed to support those modelling processes. However, most of those methodologies are focused only on one viewpoint. There is very little connection among various viewpoints. Therefore, gaps might exist among those models which may need extra work to bridge them while implementing the developed model. In this research, an ARIS^™ based framework to assist shop floor controller development is proposed. The major merit of using ARIS is that an integrated model containing the organisation, function, information and process entities of the shop floor can be achieved. In addition, a set of rules was developed to transfer the logic of this integrated model to the control codes of the controller during the implementation stage. The main objective of this framework is to reduce the gaps among various models and hence to shorten the system modelling and development time.