Abstract: A method performs consistency checking after manual intervention in a business process modeling and notation (BPMN) based workflow execution in a production environment. The method includes: providing a BPMN based workflow for the production environment in terms of a BPMN based workflow graph of tasks; operating production resources according to the tasks; displaying the status of the BPMN based workflow execution on an interface by tokens which represent at their respective current location in a BPMN based workflow graph the status of the BPMN based workflow execution; providing a touch sensitive screen within the interface for manual intervention in the BPMN based workflow execution; changing the status of the BPMN based workflow execution by manual intervention; applying an algorithm for checking whether the manual intervention has properly observed certain logical criteria taking; and indicating by warning messages whether the algorithm has identified a violation of the logical criteria.

Abstract: A Manufacturing Executing System (MES) implements a planned manufacturing process and controls the corresponding production at the plant floor in a method and in a system for managing and controlling manufacturing processes planned by an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and produced by the plant floor. The method includes defining sequential process segments. Each sequential process segment includes a plurality of actions to be performed at a plant floor level. The method includes the execution of a software tool including the steps of activating a sequential process segment and sequentially executing the respective actions. The method further includes defining state machines including a plurality of states and state transitions corresponding to actions to be performed at plant floor. A state manager tool is executed to define the state machines. A software tool is activated by the state manager tool to execute the state transitions of the state machine.

Abstract: A method control for the re-execution of a rule branch in a rule represented by a graphic flowchart in a MES system. At developing time there is defined a recycle step which includes a conditional expression to be customized. Each time it is executed in run time, the status of the recycle step is set by the execution engine as “active” until the set of steps of the rule branch that follows is executed and then the recycle step status is set as “non-active.” At run time, the execution engine keeps waiting any request of executing a certain recycle step that is in “active” status and when the execution engine executes a certain recycle step, it sets the status of the set of steps of the rule branch as “non already-executed”. As the execution engine executes a step that is not a recycle step, it sets the status of the executed step to “already-executed” status and ignores the execution of these steps.

Abstract: A Manufacturing Executing System (MES) implements a planned manufacturing process and controls the corresponding production at the plant floor in a method and in a system for managing and controlling manufacturing processes planned by an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and produced by the plant floor. The method includes defining sequential process segments. Each sequential process segment includes a plurality of actions to be performed at a plant floor level. The method includes the execution of a software tool including the steps of activating a sequential process segment and sequentially executing the respective actions. The method further includes defining state machines including a plurality of states and state transitions corresponding to actions to be performed at plant floor. A state manager tool is executed to define the state machines. A software tool is activated by the state manager tool to execute the state transitions of the state machine.

Abstract: A system and a method control the re-execution of a rule branch in a rule represented by a graphic flowchart in a MES system. At developing time there is defined a recycle step which includes a conditional expression to be customized, at engineering time. The recycle step also has an internal counter. Each time it is executed in run time, the status of the recycle step is set by the execution engine as “active” status until the set of steps of the rule branch that follows is executed and then the recycle step status is set as “non-active.” At run time, the execution engine keeps waiting any request of executing a certain recycle step that is in “active” status. At run time, when the execution engine executes a certain recycle step, it sets the status of the set of steps of the rule branch that follows as “non already-executed” status.