Study On Application Method Of Workflow In MES

Manufacturing Execution System (MES) is the Management Information System facing to shop floor, and process management is an important factor of shop floor. Workflow technology has powerful functions of process management, so if it is used in MES, the advantages of MES can be exerted fully, business process can be executed more smoothly, and work efficiency can be enhanced more.First, this paper starts with the problems in the existing MES. After that, it presents the conception and definition of workflow management and its current development, discusses the necessity of importing workflow technology into MES design and development. And then the author discusses the design of workflow model and workflow engine, which are the most important two characters in MES based on workflow technology. The workflow model in MES, which is based on relationship database, consists of three components, namely: organization model in MES, information model and control model. It is helpful to the integration of workflow data and MES business data, and it improves the running efficiency. Light weight workflow engine explains, executes and monitors the process, so that the MES business process and business logic combine together during execution. Light weight workflow engine focuses on realizing the basic functions of workflow system and it reduces the difficulty and programming during development. Finally this paper develops a prototype of"MES based on workflow", which is implemented on .NET platform, and demonstrates how the system works by a process instance.