Patent ID: 7802235

Claim:
A system for tracing or evaluating the exchange of information between MES software applications in a MES system, comprising: multiple heterogeneous MES software applications; a software system configured to operate in the MES system, linking the heterogeneous software applications for exchange of data between one another by creating an object model of the applications and their communication connections; at least one computer unit for storing the software applications and the software system; one or more link mechanisms for connecting the software applications to and integrating the software applications into the software system by mapping the API of the respective application and its communication connection to an element of the object model and a port between such model elements representing the software applications, respectively, wherein the one or more link mechanisms generates for each port: a trace box for collecting ongoing messages and an error box for collecting errors associated with messages that could not be delivered or forwarded; a first device, connected to receive information, from the software system via the trace box, for tracing an exchange of information between the software applications; a second device, connected to receive information, from the software system via the error box, for tracing errors occurring in the exchange of information between the software applications; a third device connected to receive and store tracing information relating to the exchange of information and the errors via the error box and trace box; and a fourth device connected to receive and analyze the tracing information relating to the exchange of information and errors via the error box and trace box.