MES Development Framework: Concepts, Ideas, Implementation

MES development remains primarily a labour-intensive effort, thus subject to human limitations. ISA-95 defines a modeling road map, however, engineering techniques have advanced only moderately. Inevitably, the development process introduces errors beginning in requirements formulation, continuing through product design, coding and testing. Cutting down the time between early analysis and working releases makes the adoption of an iterative development procedure possible and effective, like Unified Process. The key idea relies on the definition of a system. It should be able to use as input a MES logical model to output customized structures compliant to standards. ISA-95 defines the information organization and store NET2.0 as the application kernel while B2MML and OPC are the way to integrate into enterprises. Repetitive tasks and standardized structures are embedded in tools leading to the definition of a novel MES Development Framework, MDF. MDF empowers Visual Studio .NET with an Addin for MES definition. A custom class generator (CCG) generates from scratch to a fully customized ISA-95 compliant database and related C#.NET project in a few seconds. Customized classes are created as a data interface and as a model of physical entities. Through the C# partial class techniques, further customisations are possible. Even if the MES is regenerated several times, any custom change will remain. MES behavior is described by a work-flow in a graphical way as a work-flow foundation project. High performance, reduced dimensions, easier maintenance and coding are the key results of the project.