Process Representation Using Architectural Forms: Accentuating the Positive

The PSL (Process Specification Language) project is creating a standard language for process specification to serve as an interlingua to integrate multiple process−related applications throughout the manufacturing life cycle. This interchange language is unique due to the formal semantic definitions (the ontology) that underlie the language. The PSL ontology is organized modularly with a small set of core concepts and multiple extensions which add to the core. We are developing a mapping from the PSL semantic concepts to XML (Extensible Markup Language) that uses architectural forms to explicitly specify the relationship between the concepts in a process specification and the PSL core and extensions. An example showing architectural form processing of an XML− encoded process specification demonstrates the usefulness of architectural forms for managing modular specifications, mapping non−PSL syntax to PSL terminology, and generating extension−specific data views.