An Environment for Modeling and Managing the Process Design Process

SILVIO GONNET; GABRIELA MANNARINO; HORACIO LEONE; GABRIELA HENNING

Florianópolis

Congreso; II Congresso de Engenharia de Processos do MERCOSUL; 1999

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Departamento de Engenharia Química e Engenharia de Alimentos

A three layer object-based environment architecture (Client, Application Server and Server) to support the modeling and management of the process design process is presented. It allows the specification of a design process methodology. Also, it explicitly maintains the evolution of the design knowledge as a consequence of each design decision that is adopted during a particular design project. The Client Layer encapsulates the interface between the designer and the design environment. The Application Server Layer is responsible for managing the designer requirements by resorting to the data contained in the Server Layer. It manages the definition of generic design tasks and the administration of the scenarios that are generated when a particular design process is carried out. Design tasks are defined according to the Coordinates language syntax. Basically, a design process is viewed as a set of tasks that are linked by temporal relationships and/or a set of resources they share. Generic design tasks can be instantiated and used in a specific design project. The Server Layer contains the data that are created, used or modified by the Application Server Layer.