The Process Specification Language (PSL) is a set of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

terms used to describe processes. The logic terms are specified in an

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

that provides a formal description of the components and their relationships that make up a process. The ontology was developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (

NIST The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical s ...

), and has been approved as an international standard in the document

ISO The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Me ...

18629. The Process Specification Language can be used for the representation of

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of the secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

and

business process A business process, business method, or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks performed by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (that serves a particular business g ...

es, including production scheduling, process planning, workflow management,

business process reengineering Business process re-engineering (BPR) is a business management strategy originally pioneered in the early 1990s, focusing on the analysis and design of workflows and business processes within an organization. BPR aims to help organizations fund ...

, simulation, process realization, process modelling, and

project management Project management is the process of supervising the work of a Project team, team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project initiation documentation, project documentation, crea ...

. In the manufacturing domain, PSL's objective is to serve as a common representation for integrating several process-related applications throughout the manufacturing process life cycle.

Ontology

The foundation of the ontology of PSL is a set of primitive

concept A concept is an abstract idea that serves as a foundation for more concrete principles, thoughts, and beliefs. Concepts play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, ...

s (''object, activity, activity_occurrence, timepoint''), constants (''inf+, inf-''), functions (''beginof, endof''), and relations (''occurrence_of, participates_in, between, before, exists_at, is_occurring_at''). This core ontology is then used to describe more complex concepts. The ontology uses the Common Logic Interchange Format (CLIF) to represent the concepts, constants, functions, and relations. This ontology provides a vocabulary of classes and relations for concepts at the ground level of event-instances, object-instances, and timepoints. PSL's top level is built around the following: * Activity, a class or type of action, such as install-part, which is the class of actions in which parts are installed * Activity-occurrence, an event or action that takes place at a specific place and time, such as a specific instance of install-part occurring at a specific

timestamp A timestamp is a sequence of characters or encoded information identifying when a certain event occurred, usually giving date and time of day, sometimes accurate to a small fraction of a second. Timestamps do not have to be based on some absolu ...

* Timepoint, a point in time * Object, anything that is not a timepoint or an activity.

References

Ontology (information science) ISO 18629 {{business-stub

Ontology

See also

References