Patent ID: 8306644

Claim:
A method for modeling a manufacturing process planned by enterprise resource planning (ERP) and produced by a shop floor, a manufacturing executing system (MES) implements a modeled manufacturing process and at least one of plans and controls corresponding manufacturing at the shop floor, the method comprises the steps of: providing a number of real machines at the shop floor and describing each real machine by a real machine module having machine attributes for controlling an execution of the real machine; defining within the manufacturing process a specific manufacturing activity requiring execution of a distinct subset of the real machines for performing a specific production activity; defining virtual equipment by combining the real machines contained in the distinct subset and describing the virtual equipment by a virtual equipment model to plan and control the specific production activity, the virtual equipment model having a planning level model and a controlling level model; assigning to the planning level model: a) high-level production attributes of the virtual equipment and b) possible constraints among the high-level production attributes; and assigning to the controlling level model the machine attributes of the real machine module.