Semantic processes modelling independent of manufacturing infrastructures

This paper presents a proposal enabling the modelling of manufacturing processes independently of the structure and composition of the industrial plant where these processes will ultimately be implemented. The rationale for the proposal is in the incorporation of knowledge, supported by ontologies regarding manufacturing processes, industrial machinery and the industrial plants involved. With this knowledge, process engineers can focus their efforts exclusively to define the activities to be performed on the raw material (abstract model), allowing the system to infer what other activities should be incorporated in the abstract model to obtain a particular manufacturing process tailored to a particular industrial plant. To refine the proposal, a case study is put forward in which the management system was able to infer the way for the raw material to be processed according to the abstract model and automatically composed the activities necessary for achieving it. Finally, an implementation of this management system for processes is presented together with the design of two models of industrial plant that demonstrate the validity of our proposal.