A component based approach for modeling and validation of an automated manufacturing system

Presents a modeling and validation method that is suited to manufacturing applications. The validation technique is relevant to performance evaluation by discrete event simulation techniques (the OPNET tool). We propose an object-oriented approach for the modeling of these kinds of applications and identify the different classes of software and hardware components required by such an application. The specification of a software tool implementing the method is based on these classes. This tool provides two specific editors: the "Expert Editor" for the specification of new classes and the "Architecture Editor" for the modeling of an information system. The "Architecture Editor" verifies that the edited model is correct (at the component and architecture levels). As the simulation support is by OPNET, the tool integrates an OPNET model generator. More generally, this approach leads to the specification of a UML profile.