Research Triangle Park, NC (17 January 2007) - WBF and ISA announced today that the Business To Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) v04 Release Candidate 2 schemas and documentation are now available on the WBF XML Working Group's internal website. This represents a major enhancement of B2MML; including support for ISA-95 Part 5 Transactions, OAGIS messages and UN/CEFACT core components while still maintaining backward compatibility to V0300. Documents are available for review until February 9, 2007.
This version includes several major enhancements including:
1. Support for ISA-95 Part 5 Transactions has been added to support a wider range of integration problems.2. Message headers, commands, and formats are consistent with OAGIS transaction message formats, significantly reducing end user and vendor costs for system integration. 3.
Support for UN/CEFACT core components aids in interoperability with other XML vocabularies, such as the OAGIS 9.0 schemas. B2MML was developed by the WBF's XML Working Group to provide manufacturing companies with a freely available XML Schema implementation of the ISA-95 Enterprise - Control System Integration Standard. The ISA-95 standard provides models and terminology to standardize the integration of enterprise systems and manufacturing control systems. The standard has been adopted by manufacturing companies as a framework for planning and designing integration projects.
B2MML provides an IT ready implementation of the ISA-95 standard and has become the defacto implementation vehicle for ISA-95 based projects. The consistency of the ISA-95 and OAGIS transactions is an example of the continued impact of the Manufacturing Interoperability Guideline Working Group, a collaborative effort between OAGI, WBF, ISA, MIMOSA, and OPC Foundation.
The objective of the Manufacturing Interoperability Guideline Working Group is to develop an industry guideline that defines generic business process models between the operations management and business layers of the manufacturing support system.WBF and ISA are also members of The Automation Federation, an umbrella organization under which associations and societies engaged in manufacturing and process automation activities can work more effectively to fulfill their missions. "The work that the WBF XML Working Group has done, and especially their efforts to incorporate the work of SP-95 and OAGIS, is a direct result of our collaboration through the Manufacturing Interoperability Guideline Working Group and The Automation Federation," said WBF Chairman Maurice Wilkins.
"By incorporating OAGIS style transactions in the ISA-95 standard the SP95 committee took a major step in bringing two popular interoperability tool sets together. B2MML v04 will continue this trend with support for OAGIS transactions and UN/CEFACT core components," said Dave Emerson, WBF XML Working Group Chairman. "Since OAGIS components can fit into standard B2MML extension methods, combined B2MML and OAGIS payloads can now be exchanged using OAGIS style transactions in B2MML. This will help manufacturers who utilize both B2MML and OAGIS in their enterprise level systems."
OPC Foundation President Tom Burke commented, "The OPC Foundation applauds the work of the ISA-95 and WBF XML Working Groups to add support for message transactions, using the OAGIS transaction model will benefit end users by bringing together the two most widely adopted P2B integration standards, ISA-95/B2MML and OAGIS. The OPC Foundation is interested in adding support for ISA-95 to the OPC Unified Architecture data model set; this release of B2MML will be a good starting point for this work." Release candidate 2 schemas and documentation are available to WBF XML Working Group members for review until February 9, 2006. The WBF XML Working Group is open to all interested parties.
About WBF
WBF provides an open forum for the exchange of information related to the management, operation, and automation of manufacturing processes. Created in 1994, members of the non-profit, professional organization include end-users, vendors, consultants and academics. WBF provides organization, management, and structure to facilitate networking among its members and sharing of knowledge and information related to manufacturing processes. WBF documents best practices and guidelines for implementation of standards that apply to batch control and the exchange of batch data, as well as conducting technical conferences and technical training programs.