The Process Specification Language (PSL) overview and version 1.0 specification

This document describes Version 1.0 of the Process Specification Language (PSL). PSL is an interchange format designed to help exchange process information automatically among a wide variety of manufacturing applications such as process modeling, process planning, scheduling, simulation, workflow, project management, and business process re-engineering tools. These tools would interoperate by translating between their native format and PSL. Then, any system would be able to automatically exchange process information with any other system via PSL.

The PROCESS SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE (PSL) has been designed to facilitate correct and complete exchange of process information among manufacturing systems, such as scheduling, process modeling, process planning, production planning, simulation, project management, work flow, and business-process reengineering. We give an overview of the theories within the PSL ontology, discuss some of the design principles for the ontology, and finish with examples of process specifications that are based on the ontology.

Representing activities and the constraints on their occurrences is an integral aspect of commonsense reasoning, particularly in manufacturing, enterprise modelling, and autonomous agents or robots. In addition to the traditional concerns of knowledge representation and reasoning, the need to integrate software applications in these areas has become increasingly important. However, interoperability is hindered because the applications use different terminology and representations of the domain. These problems arise most acutely for systems that must manage the heterogeneity inherent in various domains and integrate models of different domains into coherent frameworks. For example, such integration occurs in business process reengineering, where enterprise models integrate processes, organizations, goals and customers. Even when applications use the same terminology, they often associate different semantics with the terms. This clash over the meaning of the terms prevents the seamless exchange of information among the applications. translators between every pair of applications that must cooperate. What is needed is some way of explicitly specifying the terminology of the applications in an unambiguous fashion. The Process Specification Language (PSL) ([10], [7]) has been designed to facilitate correct and complete exchange of process information among manufacturing systems . Included in these applications are scheduling, process modeling, process planning, production planning, simulation, project management, workflow, and business process reengineering. This chapter will give an overview of the PSL Ontology, including its formal characterization as a set of theories in first-order logic and the range of concepts that are axiomatized in these theories.

Interprocess communication concerns how processes affect which entities are involved in other processes. This paper provides dimensions for characterizing interprocess communication, and places common process language capabilities within them. It formalizes loosely and tightly coupled processes as extensions of the Process Specification Language (PSL), to reduce ambiguity and increase expressiveness as compared to commonly used process languages. The paper also shows how to incrementally translate common process language elements to PSL. This generates small expressions even for large process models. This applies to processes at both ends of a communication. For example, a drilling process might receive a piece of metal only when it starts, and give the metal back only when it is done (2.a). A factory process, on the other hand, might give and receive pieces of metal as it goes, in communication with drilling and other processes outside the factory (2.b). This paper uses the above dimensions to categorize communication elements of common process languages and guide their formalization in the Process Specification Language (PSL). It updates earlier PSL translations of flow 1 Other possibilities exist between the categories above. For example, a process might specify that an inbound entity comes from a process that takes particular steps, but not restrict it from taking other steps in addition. Very few process languages have such a high level of expressiveness, the Process Specification Language (PSL) being an exception, see Section 3. 2 This paper does not categorize how a process chooses which entities are communicated to other processes. Any entity can be communicated, see the third generalization in Section 8, except for restrictions in PSL, see footnote 22.

The PROCESS SPECIFICATION LANGUAGE (PSL) has been designed to facilitate correct and complete exchange of process information among manufacturing systems, such as scheduling, process modeling, proc...

Process interoperability is important to achieve collaborative product design across enterprise boundaries. In this paper, first analyzes interoperability requirements in collaborative design process. Then the Process Specification Language (PSL) is introduced to design process modeling and PSL description method of design process information is given. In the end, a process interoperability framework is established based on PSL ontology and main function of modules are discussed. The framework provides an effective solution for information exchange and sharing among different process management systems in collaborative product design.

Many manufacturing organizations while doing business either directly or indirectly with other industrial sectors often encounter interoperability problems among software systems. This increases the business cost and reduces the efficiency. Research communities are exploring ways to reduce this cost. Incompatibility amongst the syntaxes and the semantics of the languages of application systems is the most common cause to this problem. The process specification language (PSL), an ISO standard (18629), has the potential to overcome some of these difficulties by acting as a neutral communication language. The current paper has therefore focused on exploring this aspect of the PSL within a cross-disciplinary supply chain environment. The paper explores a specific cross-disciplinary supply chain scenario in order to understand the mechanisms of communications within the system. Interoperability of processes supporting those communications are analysed against PSL. A strategy is proposed for sharing process information amongst the supply chain nodes using the ‘PSL 20 questions wizard and it is concluded that, although there is a need to develop more effective methods for mapping systems to PSL, it can still be seen as a powerful tool to aid the communications between processes in the supply chain. The paper uses a supply chain scenario that cuts across the construction and manufacturing business sectors in order to provide a breadth to the types of disciplines involved in communication.

Process modeling is ubiquitous in business and industry. While a great deal of effort has been devoted to the formal and philosophical investigation of processes, surprisingly little research connects this work to real world process modeling. The purpose of this paper is to begin making such a connection. To do so, we first develop a simple mathematical model of activities and their instances based upon the model theory for the NIST Process Specification Language (PSL), a simple language for describing these entities, and a semantics for the latter in terms of the former, and a set of axioms for the semantics based upon the NIST Process Specification Language (PSL). On the basis of this foundation, we then develop a general notion of a process model, and an account of what it is for such a model to be realized by a collection of events.

The manufacturing process is one of the important processes in a product’s life cycle. The sharing of manufacturing process information among different functional application systems, such as process planning, manufacturing simulation, manufacturing execution and project management, has become difficult to implement due to the growing complexity of the manufacturing information of product, process, resource and plant. A unified representation of manufacturing process information for all applications can enable convenient integration between different application systems. The development of manufacturing-related ontology and the Process Specification Language (PSL) has provided a formal definition and structure of semantic concepts for the capture and the exchange of manufacturing information. This paper presents a manufacturing process information modelling method which builds a standard, complete and exact definition of manufacturing process data by applying current PSL specifications. New extensions of the concepts of the manufacturing process and the types of relationship for describing activities, materials and resources in a process are identified and developed. The completeness and adaptability of activity relation of the proposed manufacturing process information representation is verified using mathematical induction under a variety of complex manufacturing process situations. The ability of the modelling method in expressing complex process information is demonstrated by a machining process example.

In all types of communication, the ability to share information is often hindered because the meaning of information can be drastically affected by the context in which it is viewed and interpreted. This is especially true in manufacturing because of the growing complexity of manufacturing information and the increasing need to exchange this information among various software applications. Different manufacturing functions may use different terms to mean the exact same concept or use the exact same term to mean very different concepts. Often, the loosely defined natural language definitions associated with the terms contain so much ambiguity that they do not make the differences evident and/or do not provide enough information to resolve the differences. A solution to this problem is the development of a taxonomy, or ontology, of manufacturing concepts and terms along with their respective formal and unambiguous definitions. This paper focuses on the Process Specification Language (PSL) effort at the National Institute of Standards and Technology whose goal is to identify, formally define, and structure the semantic concepts intrinsic to the capture and exchange of discrete manufacturing process information. Specifically, it describes the results of the first pilot implementation, where PSL was successfully used as an interlingua to exchange manufacturing process information between the IDEF3-based ProCAP1 process modeling tool and the C++ based ILOG Scheduler.

Assisting organizations in improving their project management processes, the Project Management Maturity Model defines the industry standard for measuring project management maturity and agile and adaptive capabilities. Project Management Maturity Model, Fourth Edition provides a roadmap showing organizations how to move to higher levels of organizational behavior, improving project success and organizational performance. It's a comprehensive tool for enhancing project management practices, covering areas critical to organizational improvement, such as the project management office, management oversight, and professional development. It also provides methods for optimizing project management processes and suggestions for deploying the model as a strategic tool in improving business outcomes. New material in each chapter also outlines good practices for implementing adaptive an agile processes. The book also includes the Project Portfolio Management Maturity Model, which covers best practices for determining portfolio maturity, setting short-term priorities, implementing benefits realization management, improving portfolio management processes and tracking progress. The author, J. Kent Crawford, CEO of PM Solutions, describes the basics of project management maturity, including the benefits of assessing maturity, and presents a comprehensive framework for improving organization's processes. Chapters are based on the ten project management knowledge areas specified in the Project Management Institute's standard, the PMBOK® Guide. This edition provides new and revised materials based on the PMBOK® Guide including a fresh focus on agile and adaptive methods, benefits realization, and organizational change management. Organizations can use this book to: Determine the maturity of your organization's project management processes Gauge readiness for agile transformation Map out a logical path to improve your organization's processes Set priorities for short-term process improvement Track and visualize improvements in project management over time Learn to translate process maturity into business results After an objective assessment, an organization can set its goals for increasing the capability of its processes and develop a plan for reaching those goals. This book is ideal for anyone involved with improving the capability of an organization's project and portfolio management processes.

The goal of the NIST Process Specification Language (PSL) project is to investigate and arrive at a neutral, unifying representation of process information to enable sharing of process data among manufacturing engineering and business applications. This paper focuses on the second phase of the project, the analysis of existing process representations to determine how well existing process representation methodologies support the requirements for specifying processes found in Phase One. This analysis will provide an objective basis from which to develop a comprehensive language and will promote the leveraging of existing work. Process Specification Language: An Analysis of Existing Representations

The information sources for the e-Work environment are heterogeneous and distributed, and their contents are not machine-understandable. In this article, in order to integrate the syntax and the semantics of this information, we propose a development methodology for e-Work ontology using Resource Description Framework (RDF), RDF Schema (RDFS) and Process Specification Language (PSL). In a layered architecture, we use RDF/RDFS for the data of resources and the taxonomy of the PSL-ontology terms, and we use PSL, which is represented as eXtensible Markup Language (XML), for the process and the inference of the meaning of it. In this way, we can present an integrated representation of the data and the process in the distributed environment of e-Work. We illustrate the ontology building methodology by giving an example of e-Work scenario and application procedure, which is quoted from the RosettaNet e-Business standard and concerns order management, such as quotation and purchase order. The ontology is applied to the scenario.

As the use of IT in manufacturing and construction has matured, the capability of software applications to interoperate has become increasingly important. Standards-based translation mechanisms, such as the use of STEP, have simplified integration by requiring only a single translation to a neutral format. This approach works well where the meaning of the information to be shared is the same and cannot easily be misinterpreted. However, understanding and defining the meaning of information is still a challenge which is especially apparent for process information which is used by many software applications, each in a different way. This paper explores the use of a language called Process Specification Language (PSL), across the different but related industrial sectors of mechanical products and building engineering, where the meaning associated with the terms used is often very different and therefore both semantics and syntax need to be considered when translating to a neutral standard. The PSL creates a neutral, standard language for process specification to integrate multiple process-related applications.

The cultural step-change for a successful digital transformation in the Oil & Gas industry is a significant struggle. Under the pressure of executing projects with a lower budget and in time during this low oil price era, project management becomes a complex challenge. In addition, the endeavor in digital technology imposes a transition from traditional project execution to agile project execution which makes the transformation even more challenging. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present a novel way of project management called "Open Project Management" (OPM) using a digital platform that helps team members and employees to engage in the digital transformation process using social networking technology. The Open Project Management (OPM) approach is planned and organized to bridge the traditional project management (TPM) processes (plan-execution-control/monitoring-closing cycle), and the agile project management (APM) processes (short sprint iterations of planning-analysis-design-test-acceptance cycle), by focusing on the basic project building blocks: project deliverables. In the OPM platform, all project members and management processes are directly connected thru the project deliverables (either working packages or sprints). The OPM is flexible enough to switch between the traditional, the agile, or a blended approach. The open approach is aimed to empower employees by offering leadership through a self-management and ease execution work by sharing and collaborating with other project team members and project managers. To implement the OPM approach, a digital collaborative workspace platform is built to mimic familiar social media networks so that employees can perform their work within the system with minimal training. The OPM platform is comprised of 3 frameworks: i) project management, ii) project visualization and iii) project communications. These three digital frameworks combinedly allow every member to work in a collaborative way within the platform by integrating their work process and get quick feedback. The novelty of the OPM approach lies in creating autonomy, increasing transparency and more importantly engagement without face-to-face interaction for all stakeholders of the project execution. The OPM platform is an intelligent digital eco-system (iDES) that works like the traditional social media platforms, which allows employees bringing what they use in their personal lifestyle into work without adopting a new system. The workspace offers to create their work-image into the workplace, enhancing their motivation towards work and empower them. Such a project management strategy and the tool for successful implementation are essential to provide a transitional phase for employees to trigger the cultural step change required to implement digital transformation objectives.