Manufacturing Analysis Tool Software Architecture
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Solution Overview
Problem
Modern manufacturing system analysis tools are often highly integrated and tied to specific computing platforms, making widespread enterprise deployment difficult and costly, and cross-application utilization cumbersome, leading to duplication of efforts and costs.
Innovation Solution
A manufacturing system performance analysis tool software architecture with a modeling isolation layer and multiple analysis modules, featuring an application program interface (API) that decouples end-user applications from underlying analysis capabilities, allowing for modular and library-based analysis capabilities that can be extended and deployed across various computing platforms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If highly integrated end-user applications are used to provide consolidated user interfaces and modeling capabilities, then user interface consolidation and analysis capabilities are improved, but platform portability and ease of deployment deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The software is divided into separate components: an end-user application layer that provides the consolidated interface, and a separate library layer that contains the modeling and analysis capabilities. This segmentation allows the library to be reused across multiple platforms while the application can be tailored to specific platform requirements.
Solution Approach 2:
The library component is designed with universal interfaces and data structures that can be accessed by different end-user applications across multiple computing platforms. This universality enables the same analysis capabilities to serve diverse applications without requiring platform-specific implementations.
2Adaptability or versatility
If highly integrated end-user applications are developed for each discipline, then specialized analysis capabilities are improved, but development costs and duplication of efforts increase
Solution Approach 1:
Common modeling and analysis capabilities that are needed across multiple disciplines are merged into a single shared library. This eliminates duplication of effort while allowing each discipline to access and utilize the shared capabilities through the library's standardized interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is segmented into a shared library containing common capabilities and separate end-user applications for each discipline. This allows specialized applications to leverage the shared library rather than duplicating functionality, reducing overall development complexity.
3Productivity
If analysis capabilities are embedded within end-user applications, then application functionality is improved, but ease of updates and maintenance deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The modeling and analysis capabilities are extracted from the end-user applications and placed into a separate library. This allows the library to be independently updated, maintained, and improved without affecting the end-user applications, which simply need to relink to the updated library version.
Data Source
AI summary
A method for analyzing performance of a manufacturing system includes constructing a descriptive representation of the manufacturing system, selectively binding the descriptive representation to an analytical module using a software isolation layer, invoking the analytical module, and utilizing an output of the analytical module using an end-user application program configured to utilize the output.