Patent ID: 7003367

Claim:
An equipment management method for managing at least one piece of equipment through an equipment manager, said equipment manager including a configuration controller, an equipment driver and a generic equipment interface (GEI) having a GEI message specification used as a communication standard between said configuration controller and said equipment driver, said equipment management method comprising: defining a plurality of production scenario rules in a production scenario database of said configuration controller, and a plurality of equipment behavior rules in an equipment behavior database of said equipment driver; receiving a command from a manufacturing execution system (MES); converting said command into at least one first production scenario by looking up a corresponding production scenario rule in said production scenario database; converting said first production scenario into at least one first GEI message with said GEI message specification; transmitting said first GEI message to said equipment driver; converting said first GEI message into at least one first equipment communication message regulated by an equipment communication protocol by looking up the corresponding equipment behavior rule in said equipment behavior database; transmitting said at least one first equipment communication message to said equipment; receiving at least one second equipment communication message from said equipment, wherein said second equipment communication message is regulated by said equipment communication protocol; converting said second equipment communication message into at least one second GEI message by looking up said corresponding equipment behavior rule in said equipment behavior database; transmitting said second GEI message to said configuration controller; converting said second GEI message into at least one second production scenario with said GEI message specification; and transmitting said second production scenario to said MES.