Patent ID: 7912560

Claim:
An industrial automation system, comprising: a plurality of modules, comprising: at least one equipment resource control module, comprising: a common interface that includes one or more attributes and input/output capabilities that are standard among the plurality of modules; and logic of a first platform that controls a state of at least one equipment resource in the industrial automation system; at least one material resource control module, comprising: the common interface that includes one or more attributes and input/output capabilities that are standard among the plurality of modules; and logic of a second platform that controls at least one component in the industrial automation system that manages at least one material resource; and at least one resource module that coordinates the at least one equipment resource control module and the at least one material resource control module, wherein the at least one material resource control module is subordinate to the at least one equipment resource control module; and a controller that executes at least one of the plurality of modules to facilitate interactions between one or more components of the industrial automation system and at least one of the equipment resource or the material resource of the at least one of the plurality of modules via the common interface.