Introduction

Background to PLCS and DEXs

This document provides the Task Set Data Exchange Specification (DEX).

The DEX:

identifies a subset of the ISO 10303-239 "Product Life Cycle Support" [1] information model that is to be used in a given business context;
provides usage guidance for how ISO 10303-239 PLCS is to be used.

OASIS PLCS TC Publications are derived from the content that is developed on DEXLIB. It is important to note that it is the publication that is the subject of standardisation and not DEXLIB. DEXLIB is a development environment for the OASIS PLCS TC.

ISO 10303-239 is part of the ISO 10303 (STEP) set of International Standards for the computer-interpretable representation of product information and for the exchange of product data. The objective of ISO 10303 is to provide a neutral mechanism capable of describing products throughout their life cycle. This mechanism is suitable not only for neutral file exchange, but also as a basis for implementing and sharing product databases, and as a basis for archiving.

ISO 10303-239 PLCS - Product Life Cycle Support specifies an information model that defines what information can be exchanged and represented to support a product through life. Examples of such information are:

information for defining a complex product and its support solution;
information required to maintain a complex product;
information required for through life Configuration Management of a product and its support solution.

Introduction to the Task Set DEX

The Task Set DEX enables the exchange of all information required for describing a set of typical tasks. The information provided by the population of a Task Set DEX may subsequently be used for planning and executing work on actual serialized products.

The exchange is assumed to be between the main product developer and the customer/end-user.

Tasks are defined during the Logistics Support Analysis (LSA) in response to expected maintenance requirements. Tasks might be refined or modified in light of experience and changing design or support solution.

A task may refer to other tasks. The referred task may either be a pre- or post condition task or specify a task that is describing an often repeated and therefore, separately defined task step.

NOTE This DEX is suitable for the representation of numerous types of tasks, but in this first edition, it only describes maintenance tasks. In the future it will be developed to specify operational tasks and other types of tasks.

NOTE Life-cycle information, in the respect of successive refinement of a Task Set, has not been included in this edition.

NOTE Exchanges between product developers (as opposed to developers and customer/end-users) will be dealt with in later edition.

NOTE The exchange of a Task Set (a collection of, not necessarily related, tasks) can be achieved by producing an exchange file containing a single PLCS message (representing_message) with multiple task specifications according to the Task Set DEX included.

Related DEXs

The information exchanged by the Task Set DEX is normally between a product developer and a customer/end-user. It is assumed that each party has access to the Product Configuration Information, including breakdowns, equipments, components, effectivities etc.

Product Configuration Information can be exchanged using the following DEXs;

DEX (D001):— Product Breakdown for Support. This DEX can be used to specify the as designed product structure of a Product In Focus. It will incorporate a breakdown structure detailing what components can be fitted into which positions on the product. This accounts for the related design definition information of a product, to which the Tasks can be applied.
DEX: (D002) — Faults States. Faults related to products. This DEX can be used to provide the details of the possible fault states that can occur on the Product in Focus. This accounts for the related operational information of a product, for which the Tasks are designed to correct.

NOTE The above DEXs are at a draft specification. These DEXs have yet to be published.

Structure of the DEX

The DEX comprises the following sections:

Terms provides a definition of terms used in this DEX;
Scope outlines the scope of the information covered by the DEX;
ISO 10303-239 Activity Model uses the ISO 10303-239 Activity model to illustrate the business activities that are supported by the DEX;
Business Overview provides a high level overview of the business process / application that this DEX is intended to support;
Information Overview provides a high level overview of the business information that can be represented by this DEX;
Information Requirements provides a more detailed overview of the information that the business process / application described in Business Overview requires;
ISO 10303-239 Representation provides technical details of how the business information requirements identified in Information Requirements are represented in using ISO 10303 239 PLCS;
Templates lists all the templates that are used in the definition of this DEX;
Schemas identifies the information models that define the DEX, namely:
- The EXPRESS [2], task_set.exp ( HTML view) model for the DEX;
- The XML Schema for the DEX derived from the EXPRESS according to ISO 10303-28 [4] edition 2.
Reference Data lists the reference data classes used by this DEX;
Conformance defines the requirements for applications to conform to this DEX.

Supporting Material

PLCS Help and Information Pages.