Utilising Standards Based Approaches to Information Sharing and Interoperability in Manufacturing Decision Support

The need for high quality information to support the improvement of the production process is well recognised, as is the importance of sharing information in order to reduce production costs. The use of IT systems in manufacture has huge potential to support this need. However, for information sharing through software systems to be fully effective it is essential that such systems can easily interoperate. Given the range of systems which manufacturing businesses need to use and the complexity of business interactions in extended enterprises there is an important role for standards to play in providing common tools and languages by which information sharing and interoperability can be achieved. This paper discusses the issues involved in advancing the levels of information sharing and interoperability which can be achieved in manufacturing software support systems and the role which standards should play. It highlights the use of manufacturing information sharing standards, especially those being developed in the ISO Industrial Data Committee such as through the MANDATE and PSL groups. It goes on to discuss research which is exploring the use of PSL to provide a higher level of interoperability through knowledge sharing.