Integrated information modeling during the 3D workcell design phase: method and implementation

The growing need for manufacturing data acquisition, management, and analysis underscores the significance of information models for manufacturing equipment. Information modeling faces challenges due to diverse device protocols, frequent system changes, and the need to understand the operational intent defined during design, requiring iterative queries between the design and data-engineering phases. This paper proposes an integrated information modeling process embedded in the workcell design phase, comprising device linker instantiation, linker method specification, and device dependency mapping. The approach automatically generates an information model directly from the design process, capturing the design group’s operational intent and providing data engineers with semantically meaningful and structurally consistent models. To achieve this, the device driver wrapper is introduced to facilitate communication and interaction between control software and devices, together with XML-based neutral formats for representing workcell information. These wrappers and formats facilitate auto-generation of an OPC UA server and database. The process was implemented as software modules and validated on an industrial-scale assembly testbed comprising eight workcells, 85 heterogeneous devices, and 618 data points. It achieved 87.1% device linker template reuse and 95.2% automated data-point modeling coverage without data loss, and the auto-generated OPC UA server and database were successfully deployed across all workcells