Selected sections of this report were published in the Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE/ECLA/IFIP International Conference on Architectures and Design Methods for Balanced Automation Systems (BASYS'96), Lisboa, Portugal, June 1996.
The introduction of computers in office/factory floors is many often bottom-up. When the time comes to bridge the gap towards integration, the situation is sometimes chaotic, with a number of proprietary solutions, de-facto standards and customised protocols at stake.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the motivations, design of, and real-life experience with, a distributed industrial information system platform, integrating the whole information flow of industrial facilities.
Also available extended report (gzip postscript).