Computer-Assisted Work Process Modeling in Chemical Engineering

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The transfer project aims at the integrative modeling, analysis, and improvement of a variety of work processes in the lifecycle of a chemical product across disciplinary and institutional boundaries. A methodology is elaborated for the creation of conceptual, coarse grained models of work processes originating from empirical field studies in industry and their subsequent enrichment and formalization for computer-based interpretation and processing. The underlying meta-model is designed to be generic and extensible to facilitate customization for different work process types, comprising different types of design processes as well as the work processes during chemical plant operation. A novel work process modeling tool is developed to enable any stakeholder in an industrial work process to routinely create and utilize work process models with moderate additional effort. The tool builds on semantic information processing and facilitates the export of the model into other software applications for the execution of work processes. Examples include workflow engines, workflow simulation systems, and process control systems. The joint academic-industrial development of the modeling methodology, the implementation of a prototypical tool, and its validation with real industrial work process modeling problems will clearly reveal the feasibility and the potential benefit of the suggested approach in an industrial setting.