JANVEN A.
GRANFON
ISO 15531 MANDATE: A Product-process-resource based Approach for
Managing Modularity in Production Management
A. F. Cutting-Decelle, R. I. M. Young, J. J. Michel, R. Grangel, J. Le Cardinal and J. P. Bourey5
Statement of the Paper’s Research Problem
This study proposes a way of managing modularity in production management systems through the use of standardized
information models. Numerous standards do exist at the different levels of the production management systems, but their joint use
highlights some problems, among which: the lack of compatibility of the information models, the vocabulary used is not defined in the
same way even though the terms used are the same: ontology-based approaches are sometimes necessary to find the common
‘essence’ of the information handled, further they can be integrated in software interfaces, making easier to convey a higher level of
semantics in the exchanges. In the first section, a modular approach to production management is proposed; this modularity comes
here from the separate processing of the concepts of ‘product’, ‘process’, and ‘resources’. This modularity is a fundamental aspect of
the ISO 15531 MANDATE standard, in the domain of manufacturing management, presented in the next sections. Industrial
applications of the standard are then suggested, on the basis of previous work providing a partial validation of the standard. This
standard defines a new emerging paradigm in terms of manufacturing management information, taken as a whole and integrated as
such through a systemic approach considering at the same time product, process, and resource concepts. Since the standard has
recently reached the IS (International Standard) level, few applications have been developed till now, and only at a partial
implementation level.
Goals, Purpose, and Significance of the Paper
The objective of this study is to present the theoretical approaches, based on research work developed by the authors of this
study, underpinning the principles followed in the development of the standard. Another objective is to present the contribution the
standard brings in production management.
Framework Used in the Paper
OZONE ONTOLOGY
In the OZONE ontology, the ‘product’ entity represents the knowledge required by the scheduler to generate a set of resource
allocations over time. A scheduling system does not generate any physical object nor produces any change in the real world. The
production and the transportation systems are the entities responsible for the actual accomplishment of the objective.
In a scheduling system, the ‘product’ encodes the internal information about resources and physical characteristics of the
process that when combined with the external demand allows the generation of a set of ‘resource’ requirements over time. These
resource requirements are the ‘activities’. Therefore, the ‘product’ can be seen as the template plan for accomplishing a certain goal or
a certain set of goals.
The ‘demand’ provides the parameters that maps this prototypical plan into an ‘activity’ network that when executed would
accomplish the specified objective. The satisfaction of ‘demands’ centers around the execution of ‘activities’.
An ‘activity’ is a process that uses ‘resources’ to produce goods or provide services. An ‘activity’ can only be executed if
certain conditions, like resource availability, are satisfied. The execution of an ‘activity’ produces changes in the state of the real
world. Notice that although ‘products’ are ‘produced’ as a result of the execution of activities, they play a different role in the OZONE
ontology. They represent the set of valid objectives that can be specified in a demand; the set of objectives the system knows that can
be satisfied with the set of ‘resources’ available. The ‘product’ entity acts more as a link connecting ‘demands’ to ‘activities’ through
‘resources’ than a means of describing the result of executing activities.
The use of ‘resources’ and the execution of ‘activities’ is restricted by a set of ‘constraints’. These ‘constraints’ can be
specified by the ‘demand’, like release date and due date; can be inherent to the ‘product’ characteristics, like technological
restrictions and design parameters; or can be a result of the ‘resource’ limitations, like resource capacity, speed, and accuracy.
These five base concepts of the ontology – ‘demand’, ‘activity’, ‘resource’, ‘product’, and ‘constraint’ define an abstract
model of a scheduling domain, and a framework for analyzing and describing particular application environments. This framework
can be considered as a modular framework, since it is developed on top of this set of five independent concepts.
THE ISO 15531 MANDATE STANDARD
MANDATE is an International Standard for the computer-interpretable representation and exchange of industrial manufacturing
management data. The nature of the description makes it suitable not only for neutral file exchange, but also as a basis for
implementing and sharing manufacturing management databases and archiving. The standard is focused on discrete manufacturing,
but not limited to it. The purpose is to facilitate the integration between the numerous industrial applications by means of common,
standardized software tools able to represent these three sets of data categories related to manufacturing management: information
related to the management of the time; information related to the management of the resources used during the manufacturing
processes; and information related to the management of the manufacturing flows.
Data Collection Methods and Analysis Used in the Paper
In this study the authors have discussed a way of managing modularity in production management systems through the use of
international standards. The method used by the authors is basically data mining by analyzing the content of ISO 15531 MANDATE
in the context of their paper.
The first section presented a modular approach to production management, the modularity being here based on a separate
processing of the concepts of ‘product’, ‘process’ and ‘resources’. The OZONE ontology was also presented, since the project
proposes an interesting focus on scheduling management seen from this point of view. This modularity is a fundamental feature of the
MANDATE standard presented in the following sections. MANDATE is a new emerging standard in the domain of manufacturing
management, the physical implementation of the concepts proposed is just starting and a manufacturing scenario is presented.
Summary of the Results
Technology is always evolving and new standards or new editions of standards appear every time. The main evolutions are
more and more linked to the number and diversity of new technological tools appearing about the web and the e-business. In this
domain, the main trend is the recent and permanent growing of standards that enable the enterprise to preserve and re-use the
semantics included in its applications. Intelligent collaboration and integration in manufacturing are characterized by: The level of
integration (physical, application, business); The way of integration (top-down or bottom-up approach); The expected results (full
integration, unification, federation);and The tools and methods implemented (enterprise organization integration, data integration,
communication integration, integration through interfaces and translations).
Standards appear as particularly useful in the integration by unification, since, when they are used together, they provide
standardized components (enterprise models, partial models, constructs) that are shareable, re-usable, and interoperable. They also
convey and preserve the common part of the semantics included in the various enterprise (and inter-enterprise) applications.
Three (3) Major Points of Agreement
1. It will improve productivity and efficiency and to reduce the manufacturing and the time to market life cycles.
2. It improves accuracy of data processing and associated manufacturing processes, then to share and to exchange
manufacturing data and models inside the enterprise as well as with its environment in an accurate way.
3. The return on investment (ROI) will be substantial, provided that all the information about products, resources, and
flows is under an electronic format.
Three (3) Major Points of Disagreement
1. It is only possible if there is management commitment to achieving compliance in this manufacturing management
data.
2. Financial support from the management is necessary as well. Funds are needed to institute training programs, provide
quality resources, payments for external consultants, payment for auditors, and payment for certification. Lack of
sufficient funds can be one of the major hindrances in ISO compliance. Making sure that all the required costs are
accounted for right before starting the compliance process is a better way to avoid any problems during
implementation.
3. Management must be knowledgeable enough regarding ISO compliance and implementation because Lack of
knowledge affects almost every aspect and every stakeholder involved in the process.
Conclusions
It is interesting to analyze the trends and the role of international standards for intelligent collaboration and integration in
manufacturing. The needs: to improve productivity and efficiency and to reduce the manufacturing and the time to market life cycles.
To achieve that it is necessary to avoid failures in communication flows, to improve accuracy of data processing and associated
manufacturing processes, then to share and to exchange manufacturing data and models inside the enterprise as well as with its
environment in an accurate way.
The expected results coming out from the integration process are: In the case of full integration (e.g., proprietary software)
the standard is the software itself; In the case of unification (e.g., Windows, Office, Unix) the integration makes use of standardized
components (constructs, partial models) and standardized interfaces; and In the case of federation (e.g., legacy software built
around various products) the impact of standardization is very poor. Some standardized interfaces and communication standards may
be used as well as standardized translators.
It is the reason why it is possible to say that the industrial use of MANDATE standard will develop as the physical
instantiation of P-LIB catalogues will progress further. This can take time, however the return on investment (ROI) will be substantial,
provided that all the information about products, resources, and flows is under an electronic format. Today, MANDATE provides the
integration methodology applicable to production management systems. The methods for integration can be grouped into three
categories, which are: Data integration (integration through data models). This form of integration is addressed by the standards
developed in ISO TC184/SC4 (industrial data); Organization integration (integration based on enterprise models, process models,
decisional models): mainly addressed by standards developed in ISO TC184/SC5 (systems architecture and communications);and
Communication integration (integration based on network communication models and tools): also addressed by standards developed
in ISO TC184/ SC5 but IEC SC65 also addresses the same domain with another point of view.
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