Patent ID: 7275236

Claim:
A programming device comprising: a group of program generation tools to generate programs for each of a plurality of devices forming part of a control system that controls a group of external machines; and a data sharing unit adapted to interface with said group of program generation tools to share a variable name and attribute data definitions corresponding to an object of each of said plurality of devices, wherein the objects are shared by said program generation tools for generating the programs by transferring the variable name and the attribute data definitions corresponding to the object into each respective program generation tool that shares the object and wherein the plurality of devices includes at least two devices selected from a group of: a display device displaying status of each of the machines, a system supervision device detecting an abnormal condition of a production line comprising the group of machines, and a programmable controller for controlling one or more of the machines, wherein the programming device further comprises an object data definition unit adapted to perform data definition and data modification of the objects shared in the data sharing unit, wherein objects involved in the object sharing are centrally managed, wherein the data definition of the objects are provided in an object managing table, and wherein the data sharing unit stores the object managing table.