Software technologies in computer integrated manufacturing

Abstract This paper is a general “building blocks” level approach to CIM software technologies. Four software technologies: (1) Applications software packages, (2) Applications generators based on relational databases, (3) Knowledge based systems, and (4) Traditional programming are characterized and qualitatively compared as solutions to the problem of building CIM applications tailored to the needs of an individual manufacturer. Software reusability, interfacing and combination of the technologies is paid special attention. SA/SD data flow diagrams are used as a graphical description and modeling techniques both to describe general ideas and to describe software functions. A new idea of “CIMGLUE”, a general tool to make representation conversion programs between almost any two software packages is suggested and the solution possibilities are outlined.