Tackling the Semantic Interoperability of Modern Manufacturing Systems

1. Tackling the Semantic Interoperability of Modern Manufacturing Systems Steve Ray, Chief Manufacturing Systems Integration Division ray@nist.gov http://www.nist.gov/msid September 9, 2004

2. The Integration Nightmare UNITED DEFENSE LP GENERAL DYNAMICS FORD GM CHRYSLER SDRC UG CATIA CV CV process data supplier data product data analysis data inventory ALLIED SIGNAL DELCO ELECTRIC DANA B&A DELPHI SAGINAW KORRY ELECTRIC TRW EATON KEARFOTT CATIA ProE CATIA ProE UG UG SDRC ProE DANA DRVSHFT ITW DELTAR GANTON TECH SPX NYPRO ZOVAMAX SHELLCAST UG SDRC UG AUTOCAD CV ProE AUTOCAD

3. Integration Problem Categories From “Concepts for Automating Systems Integration,” NIST Interagency Report 6928, (2003)

4. What is the solution? • Point-to-point customized integration among the software systems supporting product and process development • Expensive to build & maintain • Mandating specific vendor software systems among supply chain partners • Pushes interoperability problems lower in the supply chain - it doesn’t solve them • Using neutral standards • Standards for information technology are technical rules providing the foundation that enable interconnected systems to work across activities, organizations, and geographic locations. IT Standards Enable Interoperability

5. The Global Perspective of a US Company Sector Content Automotive, Healthcare, Aerospace, Electronics Horizontal Content OAG, RosettaNet, cXML, CBL, OMG, eCo, boleroXML, eBIS-XML, STEPml, HL7, PDX, ebXML, XML/EDI Business Information Model OAG, RosettaNet, cXML, CBL, ebXML, HL7, XML/EDI Message Format OAG, BizTalk, SOAP, OASIS, ebXML, RosettaNet Message Syntax XML DTD, XML Schema, XDR, SOX

6. Automotive Aerospace Construction Health Care Chemistry Electronics Textiles Some Overarching Issues • Need for more rigor (less ambiguity) in exchange standards • Rapid growth in the number of standards needed

7. Increased Rigor Provides… • Fewer conformance and interoperability errors through improved precision of definitions

8. The Pursuit of Rigor in Data Standards Old-style (most common) standards specifications: (e.g. ISO 14258, Requirements for enterprise-reference architectures and methodologies) “3.6.1.1 Time representation If an individual element of the enterprise system has to be traced then properties of time need to be modeled to describe short-term changes. If the property time is introduced in terms of duration, it provides the base to do further analyses (e.g., process time). There are two kinds of behavior description relative to time: static and dynamic.” Data-model standards (e.g. ISO 10303-41, Product Description and Support) ENTITY product_context SUBTYPE OF (application_context_element); discipline_type : label; END_ENTITY; Semantic-model standards (e.g. ISO 18629-11, PSL Core) (forall (?t1 ?t2 ?t3) (=> (and (before ?t1 ?t2) (before ?t2 ?t3)) (before ?t1 ?t3)))

9. Increased Rigor Provides… • Fewer conformance and interoperability errors through improved precision of definitions • New possibilities for automating integration

10. Self-integrating systems Self-describing systems Common models of data Explicit, formal semantics Evolution of Integrated Data Exchange

11. Semantic Integration • Issue: • Evaluation of application interoperability. • Problem: • Automatically determine which concepts are shared by two software applications. • Solution: • Since semantic mappings are sets of sentences in Common Logic, comparison of mappings for different applications is amenable to automated reasoning. Gruninger, M. and Kopena, J. (2004) “Semantic Integration through Invariants,” to appear in AI Magazine. See also http://www.nist.gov/psl

12. AMISAutomated Methods for Integrating SystemsTypical Integration Problem message a1 Existing Tool A Existing Tool B Integratingcode message b1 Ainter-face Binter-face message a2 message b2 message a3 message b3 message a4 required communications required system behavior improved business result  Engineer with Toolkitgenerates translation Systems/SoftwareEngineering Techniques capture, trace target feature/ behavior

13. End Map Gen Integratingcode Concepts of the AMIS Solution Joint ActionModel System A's Role in Joint Action System B's Role in Joint Action SharedConcepts Semantic mapping semanticmapping Part of System B'sConceptual Model Part of System A'sConceptual Model Role in Action Role in Action data rep & LocalConcepts LocalConcepts association Links-across-views Links-across-views Part of System B'sEngineered Interface Model (EIM) Part of System A'sEngineered Interface Model (EIM)

14. Summary A semantic approach to interoperability • Improves the precision of communication • Can support automated methods for integrating systems Automated system integration • Reduces the need for so many standards committees • Reduces the cost of system integration • Recognizes that you will never get every system to conform to a universal model

16. Assistance to Industry Consortia Gov. Labs. OEMs SMEs Software Vendors Customers Commercial Testbed Commercial Integration Pilots Interoperability Testing Services Algorithm Testing Service Conformance Testing Services Standards Universe Collaborative Ontology Development Registry Services Semantic Web Services ISO Tools & Methods OAG Fundamental Research Research Testbed ebXML Semantic Equivalence Metrics Services Coordination and Composition Core Product Model Rosetta Net Semantic Resolution in B2B Integration Negotiation Protocols UML, XML, OWL Quantification of Software Uncertainty W3C B2B Services Coordination OMG Standardization SMEs Gov. Labs Universities Software Vendors Consortia Partners A Three-Way Approach to Manufacturing Interoperability Automated Integration