CORBA as object-oriented infrastructure for factory communication and control

In this paper a factory integration framework is presented which consists of a suite of cooperating component software designed for manufacturing execution and machine control. The framework is based on distributed object oriented middleware CORBA technology which is briefly introduced. The principles of designing this framework are described in some detail. The communication aspects of the framework are highlighted, particularly, CORBA´s flexible, and yet powerful messaging and event-notification services as required in the manufacturing context are discussed.