A model architecture for concurrent process engineering

To apply concurrent engineering methodology in plant design, operation and business process integration, this paper first presents a generic business process model and identifies a set of requirements, and then extends a multi-dimensional object-oriented model (MDOOM) which contains three dimensional views - business process, physical and behavior, and three model types - data, activity and performer. Thereafter, the focus is directed to data modeling. A business and engineering data analysis is conducted which results in identification of a number of detailed data management requirements. Finally, a three-layer model implementation architecture is suggested that allows managing models as metadata, and integrating models by having a set of common elementary model libraries. Under this architecture, a set of model and data services are identified and used to configure a prototype modeling environment.