The aim of the invention is to define a method that provides a simple and efficient way for creating and / or customizing a
user interface on the
client side, in particular that the options so made immediately during the production run will be highly desirable. According to the present invention, this object is achieved by a method for generating a
user interface (MMOM UI) in at least one MOM
system that controls a manufacturing environment of various manufacturing resources existing in a plurality of business domains, the method comprises the following steps: a) providing a
business domain model for each
business domain, said
business domain model comprising, in addition to other information, all related information of resources and objects and attributes thereof in a particular business domain, the attributes of said resources and objects potentially being themes of UI tags (multiple UI tags); b) generating a set of
metadata (MOM
metadata) from all business domain models, the set of
metadata comprising information related to resources and objects and their related attributes; c) enhancing the metadata set to include additional UI-related information regarding how these business domain models should be presented; d) utilizing, by a dynamic rendering engine executing in the manufacturing environment on the
client side, the metadata set about the business
domain model, including enrichment using UI-related information; e) selecting information to be displayed in a
user interface (MMOM UI) via an interface provided by a web framework (SWF), which provides the metadata set to the user in a selectable manner, according to the available metadata set; and f) using the selected information by the dynamic rendering engine to generate a user interface (MOM UI) showing the selected information from the rendering data in the metadata set and the enhanced UI-related information. Thus, the
present method eliminates the need for an intermediate
design stage that requires a running application to design or develop a UI page. With the present invention, a
client user can design and configure a UI in
one stage along with the rest of the business
domain model, without having to have a running
software development
system. Both the business
domain model and the corresponding UI are developed / deployed / published together at one time.