What is ISO 16300-4 - Interoperability of capability units about?
ISO 16300-4 specifies the search methodology from software unit catalogues for acquiring candidate capability units that satisfy the manufacturing application requirements. ISO 16300-4 specifies the search methodology for acquiring candidate capability units that satisfy the manufacturing application requirements from the software unit catalogues.
ISO 16300-4 provides a way to exchange a Manufacturing Software Unit’s (MSU) capability as information by means of a capability profile. Software capability profiling is the basis for providing the above-mentioned software interoperability services. ISO 16300-4 is used and applied as the foundation for the ISO 16300 series. ISO 16300-4 shows what interoperability services are enabled by using software capability profiles. The subsequent steps develop concrete methods and mechanisms to provide these interoperability services.
Who is ISO 16300-4 - Interoperability of capability units for?
ISO 16300-4 on Interoperability of capability units is useful for:
- The automation industry
- Software programmers
- The IT industry
- Quality control personnel
Why should you use ISO 16300-4 - Interoperability of capability units?
ISO 16300-4 addresses the requirements of users and suppliers of manufacturing software regarding the interoperability of software in the area of industrial automation.
User interoperability requirements include:
- Integrating an automation application system by combining capabilities of a set of software components provided by various sources
- Integrating the capability of a software unit from one resource system platform to another platform
- Validating and verifying the capability of a software unit to meet the automation application system requirements
Supplier requirements include:
- Representing the set of capabilities provided by a software component used in a software unit
- Verifying software component capability as a part of a required software unit capability
- Cataloguing a software unit in terms of its capability for interoperability in an automation application system to support wide distribution
ISO 16300-4 also addresses software interoperability services, which include:
- Access to the description of a software capability to enable interoperability assessment
- Enabling the search and location of candidate software units and components, preferably automatically, using search engines
- Representing the dependencies between software components for an automation application hosted on a particular system platform
Software capability is first defined as a set of functions and services with a set of criteria for evaluating the performance of a capability provider. It is then expressed and represented as facts about the software, how and what it can do. ISO 16300-4 deals with manufacturing software capability profiling for interoperability, was developed with the aim of providing a standardized method to describe the capabilities of manufacturing software in terms of the MSU capability profile and the software component is included in the MSU.