Machine Shop Information Model Application, Next Step

Simulation is defined as the imitation of the operation of a system or real-world process over time, and in many cases, manufacturing provides one of the most important applications of simulation (Zolfaghari and Roa, 2006). Standard interfaces could make information effective sharing, and hence promote the utilization of simulators. An information model (McLean et al., 2005), which represents machine shop data and facilitates data sharing among machine shop’s manufacturing execution system, scheduling system, and simulation system, has been developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Recently NIST researchers in collaboration with industrial partners have been working on a standards development effort titled Core Manufacturing Simulation Data (CMSD) Product Development Group (PDG) under the guidelines, policies and procedures of the Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO). A key activity of the CMSD PDG is to develop a CMSD information model using the machine shop information model as the strawman. This paper briefs the machine shop information model and the CMSD information model. This paper discusses information exchange, using NIST’s information model, between different representations and presents an algorithm to exchange data between a database system and an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) [1] document. The algorithm has been built based on Document Object Model (DOM), XML Path Language (XPath), and Open Database Connectivity Database Engine (ODBC). The paper also describes interfaces for XML schema’s validation, structured query, and data transfer.