Introduction

Background to PLCS and DEXs

This document provides the Faults related to products 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.

This exchange enables the transmission of the data exchange set (DEX) Fault States

The Fault State Dex deals with how a product can or may degrade in its functions. It is usual for the set of fault states to be derived from a formal analysis process such as Failure Modes and Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA)

The analysis is an iterative process, potentially changing at each stage of the products life cycle. The initial analysis ideally conducted as early as possible in the product life cycle.

The formal analysis, such as FMECA, is conducted with the following objectives:

Feedback of required changes to design;
Evidence of safety and reliability have been given due consideration in the product design;
Identification of support drivers, which are the justification for the generation of maintenance task descriptions.

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;
Capabilities lists all the capabilities that provide usage guidance for this DEX;
Schemas identifies the information models that define the DEX, namely:
- The EXPRESS [2], fault_states.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.