Enhancing Supply Chain Management through Cross-Disciplinary Communication Approaches

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COMMUNICATION APPROACHES AND ONTOLOGIES :FROM THE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCT TO THE CONSTRUCTION WORKS- Example of Supply Chain Management - Prof A.F. CUTTING-DECELLE, Evry University, IUT Organisation and Production Management Department, EVRY, F Dr. L. POUCHARD, Computer Science and Mathematics Division Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Department of Energy (US) COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

CONTENTS OF THE PRESENTATION • - Introduction • - A cross-disciplinary communication approach : Supply chain • - A supply chain scenario • Management of the information exchanges in the SC : problems faced • The Process Specification Language (PSL) • - Management of the SC information exchanges with PSL (X-SLANG) • - Conclusion / perspectives COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

INTRODUCTION • SUPPLY CHAIN : example of a cross-functional activity between organisations and companies involved in the construction process : • Suppliers of industrial products • Construction company • Subcontractors • Transport • Retailers, … • - Analysis made in terms of : • - information flows • - information and knowledge exchanges COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

A CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COMMUNICATION APPROACH : SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT Main features of a supply chain (manufacturing - construction) : - converging chain directing all materials to the construction site - “construction factory” : set up around one single product - temporary chain - 4 major roles of SCM in construction : (not exclusive) * reduce costs and duration of activities on the site * reduce costs of logistics, lead time and inventory * increase the concurrency between activities * integrated management of the site production COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Complexity of the construction SC : focused on the informational aspect COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Supply chain information identification and modelling :  Analysed on a Supply chain scenario Project IMCRC X-SLANG, Univ. of Loughborough, UK COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

A SUPPLY CHAIN SCENARIO Supply chain management issues : • Policy - partnership not adversarial • Information exchange / sharing - must exist or should be implemented • Information flow requirements - accurate, timely and in coordinated fashion with minimum distortion • Specific information applications – Order processing; Demand forecasting and Management information may be considered for controlling a supply chain • Use of “industrial products” on a construction site : knowledge related to the product different according to the actor of the construction project COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

A cross-disciplinary supply chain scenario : Encompasses Construction company Construction site Manufacturer Retailer Transporter Construction company initiates most of the activities COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Cross-disciplinary supply chain (high level) functions : Construction company: receives order; places order; prepares payments; releases payment etc. Manufacturer: processes order; despatches goods to customer; prepares payments to suppliers; obtains remittance from the customer etc. Transporter: receives shipment order; collects and delivers goods; obtains remittance from the customer etc. Retailer: receives order; processes order; delivers goods; places order to distributors; prepares payments to suppliers; obtains remittance from the customer etc. Construction site: receives delivery notification; confirms receipt of goods; returns damaged goods; releases undamaged goods to users etc. COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Approach followed for the scenario : • List of the processes for the different nodes • IDEF3 process model • Analysis of the information flows between the process for the different nodes • Identification of the contents of the flows : example • Process ontology needed for the scenario • Correspondences between the ontologies of the different nodes COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PROCESS LIST COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

IDEF3 process representation : Construction Company Top level IDEF3 process schematic COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

A brief system configuration of sharing concepts/information within the supply chain scenario COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Typical information structure definition : Purchase order Form COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

MANAGEMENT OF THE INFORMATION EXCHANGES IN THE SC : PROBLEMS FACED - SCM = integration of suppliers, manufacturers, warehouses, so that merchandise is produced in the right quantities, at the right location, at the right time ==> BIG problem for the SC partners to share a common knowledge : vocabulary, common interpretation of the content of a delivery document : between the supplier and the sub-contractor - for delivery of a component at a given place, at a given date, - under a specific packaging : pallet filled in the right order COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Need of a common ontology : - to provide a terminology shared by all - to define the meaning of the terminology in an unambiguous way (use of First Order Logic) - to develop a set of axioms capturing properties and constraints of the terminology, in order to enable an automatic deduction from the SC knowledge --> role of the axioms : integrity checking of the knowledge COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Example of a process ontology from the scenario : built from the life cycle of the “order processing” process COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Example of a process ontology from the scenario : also built from the structured list of processes COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

THE PROCESS SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE (PSL) - A neutral, standard description of manufacturing processes : ISO 18629 PSL standard - Sets of definitions for processes expressed in the Knowledge Interchange Format (KIF is itself an ISO candidate standard) - A grammar of processes - A core ontology and extensions for each process domain - Translation mechanisms between individual applications and PSL COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PSL is also an ontology of process definitions : As an ontology, PSL is a computer-readable language that specifies : • concepts, • a terminology and definitions for manufacturing processes, • relationships between the above, • axioms constraining the use of definitions and relationships • All the above are machine-readable and processable. COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Parts 4 Definitional Extensions Part 12 PSL Outer Core Part 11 PSL Core Concept Parts 13-15 Theories The architecture of PSL • A core ontology • ISO 18629-11 • An outer core • ISO 18629-12 • Foundational theories • ISO 18629-13, 14, 15 • Definitional extensions • ISO 18629-4xxx Concept COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Primitive Categories Activity Activity_occurrence An activity_occurrence is associated with a unique activity and begins and ends at specific points in time. Timepoint Object Anything that is not a time-point, not an activity and not an activity occurrence. An object typically associates a timepoint and an activity-occurrence. Primitive relations Before Occurrence_of Participates_in Primitive Functions Beginof Endof Individuals Inf+ Inf The PSL core Everything in PSL is either an activity, an activity occurrence, an object, or a timepoint. PSL uses KIF (prefix) syntax. There are symbols reserved for KIF. The PSL concepts are also reserved in the language. COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Example: Activity and Activity Occurrence • “activity” and “activity_occurrence” are reserved notations and defined in PSL. ?a, ?occ are any variables that take values a, b, etc... An activity and activity occurrence are noted as: • (activity ?a), (activity_occurrence ?occ) • The activity (paint House1 PaintCanK1) is an instance of the class of painting activities. • (painting (paint House1 PaintCanK1) • An occurrence of this activity is not an instance of this activity. There may be several occurrences of this activity, starting and ending at different times: • (occurrence_of Occ1 (paint House1 PaintCanK1))(occurrence_of Occ2 (paint House1 PaintCanK1))(= (beginof Occ1) 11AM)(= (endof Occ1) 12AM)(= (beginof Occ2) 3PM)(= (endof Occ2) 5PM) • There may be another instance of the Painting activity denoted: • (Painting (paint House1 PaintCanK2), but this instance has no occurrence. COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Activity Occurrence Theory Complex Activity Theory Atomic Activity Theory Discrete State Theory Occurence Tree Theory The PSL Outer-core and its dependencies Part 12: Outer Core Part 12: Outer Core • Activity Occurrence Theory • Complex Activity Theory • Atomic Activity Theory • Subactivity Theory • Occurrence Tree Theory • Discrete State Theory Subactivity Theory Part 11: PSL Core Part 11: PSL Core COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

The Foundational Theories • Duration and ordering theories • Duration • Subactivity occurrence ordering • Resource theories • Resource requirements • Resource sets • Activity performance theories • Activity performance COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Permuting Activity Trees Compacting Branch Structure Permuting Branch Structure Activity Trees and Re-ordering Repetitive Branch Structure Branch Structure and Ordering Folding Branch Structure Atomic Activities: Upward Concurrency Spectrum and Sub-tree Containment ISO 18629-12 Atomic Activities: Downward Activities Embedding Constraints for Activities Spectrum for Atomic Activities Preconditions for activities Skeletal Activity Tree Example of a Definitional Extension: the Activity Extension COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Other Definitional Extensions • Temporal and State Extensions • Preconditions, Effects, Distribution, Variation, Embedded Activity Trees, Atomic Activities • Activity Ordering and Duration Extensions • Duration, Subactivity Occurrence Ordering, Envelops and Umbrae, Iterated Occurrence Ordering • Resource Roles • Resource Roles, Capacity-Based Concurrency, Reasoning About Resource Divisibility, Reasoning about Resource Usage • Resource Sets • Resource Set-Based Activities, Substitutable Resources, Homogenous Resource Sets, Inventory Resource Sets, Resource Pools • Processor Activity Extensions • Processor Activity, Resource Path COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Example: describing resources in an activity • The resource PaintCan K1 is a consumable resource. Represented in PSL, it is defined as: • A resource ?k1 is consumable by an activity ?a if any other activity ?b that also requires ?k1 is not possible to perform after ?a completes its occurrence. ((forall (?k1 ?a) (consumable ?k1)) • The definition of the consumable relation is found in Resource Roles: defrelation consumable (?k1 ?a) (forall (?a ?occ1 ?occ2) (implies (and (common ?a ?b ?k1) (do ?a ?occ1 ?occ2)) (forall (?b ?occ3) (implies (and (branch ?occ3 ?b) (precedes ?occ2 ?occ3)) (not (poss ?b ?occ3)))))))) COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Relations between Definitional Extensions and the Core and Outer Core theories • The Definitional Extensions are the ones to be used when expressing application processes in the PSL language • The Core, Outer Core and Foundational Theories support the Definitional Extensions and provide PSL with a formal logic. Machine reasoning upon the concepts in PSL is possible, and consistency to its roots can be proven thanks to those COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Who is the target audience for PSL? • End users : • Engineers, staff, anyone who needs to exchange process information among applications within their company • Collaborators from partnering companies • Suppliers and customers in vertical integration • Prescribers : • Software developers and vendors who produce the design tools, such as CAD, project planning softwares, etc… and need to incorporate PSL translators into their tools • Software developers and vendors to make their design tools PSL compliant COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

ACT A Language for Process Specification AP213 Behavior Diagrams Core Plan Representation (CPR) Entity-Relationship (E-R) EPFL Petri Net Representation Functional Flow Block Diagrams Gantt Charts Generalized Activity Networks (GAN) Hierarchical Task Networks (HTN) IDEF0 IDEF3 <I-N-OVA> Constraint Model Knowledge Interchange Format O-Plan Task Formalism OZONE PAct PAR2 Part 49 PERT Networks Petri Nets Process Flow Representation Process Interchange Format V.1.1 Quirk Model Visual Process Modeling Language Process Representation Studied for the development of PSL • AND/OR Graphs • Data Flow Diagrams • Directed Graphs • State Transition Diagrams • Tree Structures COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

The Standardization of PSL : ISO 18629 Process Specification Language (PSL) • An open standard in the International Standards Organization • Technical committee 184 : Industrial Automation Systems and Integration, sub-committee 4 (SC4) : Industrial Data. • A standard for the specification of process data • Does not represent product data COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Use of PSL : • Addresses semantic interoperability by providing process definitions usable by software • The process definitions can be used with reasoning or inference engines : • PSL can be used in a stack of interoperability standards to ensure semantic interoperability between the layers of the stack COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Standardization of ISO 18629 (as of June, 2005) COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PSL and other standards • Standards are used in stacks : • For interoperability, standards or conformance to a standard must exist at all levels • PSL can be extended due to the richness of its concepts and the representation language (KIF) COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PSL in action : http://www.mel.nist.gov/psl COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

A syntactic translation: The application native syntax is parsed to PSL syntax, for instance: IDEF3 to KIF C++ to KIF Application concepts are expressed in KIF A semantic translation: KIF definitions are written for application concepts using PSL reserved terminology and relations A 20-question wizard available at the National Institute of Standards and Technology assists in the process http://www.mel.nist.gov/psl/20questions.html Process Exchange between two applications : general principles Two tasks for each applications are required : COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Syntax into KIF Syntax into KIF Application A own syntax & terminology Application B own syntax & terminology Application A ontology Application B ontology Application A expressed using PSL concepts Application B expressed using PSL concepts Process Exchange using PSL Parsing of relevant PSL concepts for Application B COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Syntax into KIF Application A own syntax & terminology Application A ontology 1 1 (forall (?r) (=> (inject_mold) (rA ?r))) (forall (?r ?a) (<=> (rA ?r) (exists (?a) (reusable ?r ?a)))) Unconditional mapping to PSL concepts (forall (?r) (<=> (rA ?r) (and resource ?r) (reusable ?))) Application A expressed using PSL concepts 2 2 3 3 Expressing Application A concepts using PSL COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Syntax into KIF Application B own syntax & terminology Application B ontology Application B expressed using PSL concepts Expressing Application B concepts using PSL 4 One additional step: inverting the table (Application B => PSL) (PSL => Application B) 4 Parsing of relevant PSL concepts for Application B COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

The Twenty Questions Wizard at the National Institute of Standards and Technology • An aid to expressing an application’s concepts in PSL • A class name for your activity is required • At least one check per question is required • This mandatory approach allows compliance with PSL COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

MANAGEMENT OF THE SC INFORMATION EXCHANGES WITH PSL (X-SLANG) Role of knowledge in SCM : - for a SC approach on the basis of the shareable information expressed in terms of product - process - resources Towards a common SC language (1/2) : - SC well suited to the application of grammatical models : * each stage (inventory, transportation, … ) : discrete step * SC often deeply layered * many coordination constraints * constituents of the SC are repetitive - aim : develop a high level grammatical description of SCs COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Towards a common SC language (2/2) : - grammatical description of SCs made of abstract constituents providing a framework for expressing more specialised processes - abstract grammar : very important since it provides the basis for comparisons and changes - SC lexicon : set of terms : plants, trucks, warehouses, purchase orders, inventory or else manufacturing, storing, ordering - SC grammar : way of organising the structure of the terms COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Role of PSL in the X-SLANG project : - identify terms of a common vocabulary of the SC in order to make software tools used by the actors of the SC interoperable Stages of the work (X-SLANG project) : - identify the different BP / technical processes of a real scenario of information exchanges in SC - process modelling : IDEF3 representation (graphical + language) - identify terms of a common SC language (based on PSL principles and ontologies) - check the procedure on a real scenario COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PSL 20-question wizard COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

PSL translation definition of the concept “Send_purchase_order” COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Tabulated PSL_wizard’s translation results of the 10 concepts (X-SLANG) COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

CONCLUSION / PERSPECTIVES • Cross-disciplinary supply chain : • complex • creates interoperability problems • requires solution • Process identification of the SC scenario is an important stage towards this solution • IDEF3 process schematics of the scenario provides a step towards understanding the requirements of a language • PSL provides an important enabler to an improved interface • Project focused on an evaluation of the capability of PSL to meet the requirements identified in the IDEF3 process models • New work starting : enlarging the scope of the scenario, in collaboration with NIST, ORNL COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS • X-SLANG project : funded through the EPSRC IMCRC strategic research programme, Loughborough University, UK • Joint work by : • Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering • Civil and Building Engineering departments of Loughborough University, UK - Oak Ridge National Laboratory, COmputer Science and Mathematics, USA (*) • University of Evry/IUT-Dept Organisation and Production Management, F (*) The submitted manuscript has been authored by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed for the U. S. DOE by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725. Accordingly, the U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish or reproduce the published form of this contribution, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes. COST meeting - Lyon - June 2005

Enhancing Supply Chain Management through Cross-Disciplinary Communication Approaches