Formal description technique SDL for manufacturing systems specification and description

Abstract

This paper addresses the formal specification and description of manufacturing systems. It is considered the use of SDL (Specification and Description Language), a standard FDT (Formal Description Technique), to model the behaviour, data and structure aspects of a manufacturing system. SDL was originally developed for telecommunication systems (protocol specification and data processing). The adequacy of FDTs, namely SDL, for the manufacturing systems domain is investigated by developing the SDL specification of part of a Distributed/Virtual Manufacturing System cell installation (D/V MS Project), and analysing it.