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As the world approaches a new millennium, more and more industrial and manufacturing processes are being computerized and rapid retrieval and use of necessary information is vital if an organization is to remain competitive. The present work develops a computerized decision support system to assist in maintenance planning. The system design and analysis, and the decision support system design and development are all developed in an object‐oriented environment. The support system is driven by maintenance performance indices. Both object‐oriented databases and relational databases are used, for transient and permanent entities respectively. A knowledge base with if‐then rules is developed for fault diagnosis and repair. The methodology was applied to a powder coating plant to develop its maintenance decision support system.

The purpose of this paper is to address the capture and documentation of essential design for manufacture (DFM) pieces of information to make design decisions. Essential manufacturing information is that which can affect the fulfilment of functional requirements and product constraints. The hierarchical structure of the main components for the open architecture‐process planning model (PPM), manufacturing activity model (MAM) and manufacturing resource model (MRM) are discussed The aim of the approach is to define manufacturing knowledge structures and develop a knowledge‐based application for DFM.

This work addresses the capture and documentation of essential DFM pieces of information to make design decisions. Essential manufacturing information is that which can affect the fulfilment of functional requirements and product constraints. The hierarchical structure of the main components for the open architecture‐PPM, MAM and MRM are discussed. The aim of the approach is to define manufacturing knowledge structures and develop a knowledge‐based application for DFM.

This paper gives details of the application framework development by integrating object‐oriented technology and component‐based development. This will help to achieve large‐scale software reuse for manufacturing application development projects. This paper also gives an overview of a computer system for automated concurrent engineering, and more particularly, to a method for the concurrent design of parts, tools and processes.

The workability of this approach was tested in a machine‐tool manufacturing firm and the same has been presented as a case.

Object‐oriented programming, as an alternative to traditional, procedural programming methods for finite element analysis, is growing rapidly in importance as algorithms and programs become more complex. This paper reviews some of the literature and seeks to explain some of the concepts of object‐oriented thinking most useful to the finite element programmer, using as an example a C++ implementation of a heat transfer and solidification program.

The emergence of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology promises enormous opportunities to shift business process automation up to the wire level. The purpose of this paper is to explore the methodology of incorporating business logics into RFID edge systems, and thereby facilitate the business process automation in the RFID‐applied environment.

Following the object‐oriented modelling perspective, concepts of classes, instances are deployed to characterise the runtime context of RFID business scenarios; event patterns are used to aggregate RFID tag read events into business meaningful events; and business rules are established to automate business transactions according to the elicited events.

The paper has emphasised the synergy between business process automation and automatic data acquisition, and has identified the inter‐relations between RFID tag read events, application‐level events, business rules, and business operations. The reported research has demonstrated a feasible scheme of incorporating business process control and automation into RFID‐enabled applications.

The paper analyses the characteristics of RFID data and event handling in relation to business rule modelling and process automation. The features of event‐relied awareness, context containment and overlapping, etc. are all captured and described by the proposed object‐oriented business model. The given data‐driven RFID middleware architecture can serve as one reference architecture for system design and development. Hence, the paper plays an important role in connecting automatic data acquisition and existing business processes, and thereby bridges the physical world and the digital world.

This paper aims to propose a framework for building a flexible supply chain business model using an object‐oriented approach.

The proposed modeling framework has used the de facto object‐oriented modeling standard, Unified Modeling Language (UML), for building a supply chain model. To compensate for the potential weakness of the pure object‐oriented model and UML, the framework integrates business rules with its model.

This paper provides information about several sources, which are the bases of modeling a supply chain. The paper regards a supply chain as five view models with four business domains and each domain consists of functions, resources, processes, interactions and business rules.

A typical manufacturing supply chain is considered as a target system to apply this design methodology. The paper does not handle a real case study as an application example.

This paper newly added the category of “Business Process Reengineering (BPR)‐driven” models to the traditional taxonomy of supply chain models and proposed an object‐oriented business model (OOBM) for a supply chain as one of the BPR‐driven models. It is hoped that this modeling approach is highly usable and adds value to an analyst, practitioner, and designer in the field of supply chain.

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a complex manufacturing system and it demands a robust control software for its scheduling, planning and control functions. This paper describes the development of an agent‐based infrastructure for the control of a cellular FMS. The FMS in this project is a flexible assembly cell (FAC), comprising two assembly robots and a conveyor system. The aim is to establish a multi‐agent control system with good expandability and to be able to cope with dynamic changes in the FAC. The proposed agent‐based FAC control system comprises a collection of agents implemented in a distributed control network. The approach of the agent design is based on the object‐oriented modelling technique. According to the proposed control architecture, a standard agent template has been designed for the establishment of individual agents in the agent‐based system.

Presents an object‐oriented system for scheduling in a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) with the purpose of demonstrating how the control aspects of such a system can be enhanced by using metalevel planning. Represents the objects and metaknowledge of the system using an object‐oriented approach. The resulting system gives a clear, complete and comprehensive picture of the FMS environment, as well as a modular, flexible and interactive control mechanism to generate and maintain detailed FMS production schedules.

Summarizes the basic tenets of an object‐oriented database system, including a brief history of object‐oriented programming as well as a discussion of what the object‐oriented approach entails. Includes definitions on key concepts and terminology. Discusses the pros and cons of the object‐oriented model, along with a comparison with relational database systems. Finally, covers a development plan for implementing an object‐oriented database system, with details about what types of costs and concerns are involved.

Ubiquitous web applications (UWA) are a new type of web applications which are accessed in various contexts, i.e. through different devices, by users with various interests, at anytime from anyplace around the globe. For such full‐fledged, complex software systems, a methodologically sound engineering approach in terms of model‐driven engineering (MDE) is crucial. Several modeling approaches have already been proposed that capture the ubiquitous nature of web applications, each of them having different origins, pursuing different goals and providing a pantheon of concepts. This paper aims to give an in‐depth comparison of seven modeling approaches supporting the development of UWAs.

This methodology is conducted by applying a detailed set of evaluation criteria and by demonstrating its applicability on basis of an exemplary tourism web application. In particular, five commonly found ubiquitous scenarios are investigated, thus providing initial insight into the modeling concepts of each approach as well as to facilitate their comparability.

The results gained indicate that many modeling approaches lack a proper MDE foundation in terms of meta‐models and tool support. The proposed modeling mechanisms for ubiquity are often limited, since they neither cover all relevant context factors in an explicit, self‐contained, and extensible way, nor allow for a wide spectrum of extensible adaptation operations. The provided modeling concepts frequently do not allow dealing with all different parts of a web application in terms of its content, hypertext, and presentation levels as well as their structural and behavioral features. Finally, current modeling approaches do not reflect the crosscutting nature of ubiquity but rather intermingle context and adaptation issues with the core parts of a web application, thus hampering maintainability and extensibility.

Different from other surveys in the area of modeling web applications, this paper specifically considers modeling concepts for their ubiquitous nature, together with an investigation of available support for MDD in a comprehensive way, using a well‐defined as well as fine‐grained catalogue of more than 30 evaluation criteria.

The purpose of this paper is to present principles from the complex approach in education and describe some practical pedagogic experiences enhancing how “real world” perspectives have influenced and contributed to curriculum development.

Necessity of integration in terms of knowledge modeling is an historical trend in Engineering and Computer Sciences curricula. Integration of particular technical aspects with wide global aspects is a response to globalization demands. Globalization demands require new approaches, at both educational and teaching levels. Also, educational level embeds a wide range of pedagogical proposals or teaching proposals. Since the 1990s, Engineering and Computer Sciences curricula have emphasized, increasingly, the project‐oriented approach in the Engineering field of knowledge and software engineering contents has migrated to beginners or fresh‐man level in Computer Sciences courses. This approach is called the Complex Approach in education. COOL – “Comprehensive Object‐Oriented Learning” – is an educational project mentored by Emeritus Professor Kristen Nygaard, from the Department of Informatics at Oslo University, which deals with the complex approach in education. Professor Nygaard passed away in 2002. This project was published in 2006 under the title of “Comprehensive Object‐Oriented Learning: the Learner’s Perspective”. This paper analyses theoretical aspects in Nygaard's project and also compares aspects with the author's work teaching Object Oriented Modeling in Computer Sciences and Engineering, at Federal University of Santa Catarina – UFSC, Florianopolis, Brazil. The author's pedagogic proposal, developed on those contexts, since 1997, is supported by Nygaard theory and also by Edgar Morin “Complex Thought” theory adopted by UNESCO, titled Complex Thought cathedra.

Innovation, in terms of Engineering and Computer Sciences curriculum development, is deeply related to the complex approach educational paradigm. Consequently, innovation in terms of pedagogic practices is also deeply related to the complex approach perspective. Complex approach overpasses fragmented view of knowledge towards integrative view concerning curriculum development in technological areas.

The comprehensive object‐oriented learning presented here is applied to Computer Science and Engineering. However its development and application could impact other disciplines and education, especially in relation to technology integration in education.

The paper presents and discusses COOL as a concept and approach for enhanced learning, in a novel manner, taking account of theoretical underpinnings developed aligned to modern thinking.