A stair-like CIM system architecture

Computer integrated manufacturing (CIM) has received growing acceptance from both industries and academia alike. However, even with the increasing reliance on computing technologies, there are still wide-spread concerns about the true impacts on the actual performance of the companies implementing CIM. In particular, the overall coherence of the entire system has been considered as a key issue. To address this problem, there is a significant amount of interest in the CIM system architecture, that is, in considering the integration of technology, people and business from the viewpoint of a global system. This paper will first review some major existing CIM system architectures, including CIM-OSA, GRAI-GIM, and PERA. Then, based on the requirements from industry, a stair-like CIM system architecture with six different views and five development stages is proposed. Some modeling formalisms are introduced and discussion of its suitability for industrial application is included.