Implementing an International Standard for Manufacturing System Lifecycle Management Using Object-Process Methodology

Object-Process Methodology (OPM) is a model-based systems engineering methodology which has been recognized as an ISO 19450:2015 standard for automation systems and integration. It is domain-independent and intended for conceptual modeling of systems of various kinds. We collaborated remotely with a team that had implemented this methodology for modeling their proposed international standard, which concerned manufacturing systems lifecycle management. The goal of this collaboration was to achieve a satisfactory level of text-model coherence and model quality for the proposed standard that comply with ISO 19450. Achieving this goal proved to be an ill-structured problem, without defined initial or final states and without a clear procedure for solving it. We compare three latter versions of the conceptual model using a quality assessment rubric that has been validated in previous studies. Utilizing OPM in this capacity enabled efficacious evaluation of model quality at every stage of authoring. The case described herein demonstrates how OPM can be utilized by interdisciplinary teams to tackle ill structured problems more effectively.