ENGINEERING PROCESSES - ON AN APPROACH TO REALIZE A DYNAMIC PROCESS CONTROL

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Endig, Martin | Jesko, Dirk

Affiliations: Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg Department of Computer Science Magdeburg, Germany

Abstract: The application of modern concepts and methods from information technology gains impor-tance for the execution of product development processes. Presently, the execution of such processes is supported by different specialized software systems. A flexible company-wide use of such tools is achieved by their provision within specific development environments. A result is the demand for an integration concept for heterogeneous software systems which also considers design documents and especially design processes. In the first part of this arti-cle we will present our approach for a Process-Centered Engineering Environment. A central component within the environment is responsible for the management of the design processes, i.e. modeling, enactment, etc. One necessary aspect that has to be realized by this component is the tracing of process states. Statecharts provide a suitable basis for the specification of these states even for complex processes. The second part of the article describes an adopted version of statecharts focusing on processes. Design processes are characterized by a certain unpredictability. Therefore, the environment has to provide means for changing processes at runtime. The last part of the article discusses this aspect based on an INSERT-operation.

Journal: Journal of Integrated Design & Process Science, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 65-82, 2001