WBF Releases New Integrated Version of B2MML and BatchML

Phil Black - PII Editor 02/12/2008

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Version V0401 integrates support for ISA88 and ISA95 into a single standard providing support for general recipes

Research Triangle Park, NC [26 November 2008]—WBF, the Forum for Automation and Manufacturing Professionals today announced the release of Version V0401 of B2MML and BatchML, which combines the two markup languages into a single related set of standards useful to the general process industries.

B2MML (Business To Manufacturing Markup Language) is an XML (eXtensible Markup Language) implementation of the ISA95 family of standards, known internationally as IEC/ISO 62264. BatchML (Batch Markup Language) is an XML implementation of the ISA88 family of standards. B2MML and BatchML consist of sets of XML schemas written using the World Wide Web Consortium’s XML Schema Language, and implement data models for ISA95 and ISA88 respectively.

ISA95 and ISA88 have been widely adopted in the process industries, are supported by most major manufacturing operations management system suppliers, and are in use at Fortune 500 process companies around the world.

The most significant functional expansion in this is release is the BatchML support for ISA 88 General Recipes. This will facilitate standards based implementation and exchange of corporate level product definitions in the process industries.

V0401 provides several XML schema level improvements, including

· Support for UN/CEFACT core components in BatchML that matches existing support in B2MML. UN/CEFACT core components define specific terminology for cross-business information exchanges such as quantity, currency, amount, and identifier.

· BatchML has been updated to support B2MML style business transactions, schema extension methodology, and common ISA88 & 95 data definitions.

These XML schema level enhancements will enable easier integration of applications by processing companies and their system vendors.

“This version of BatchML includes support for B2MML/OAGIS format transactions,” said Dennis Brandl, Chairman of the WBF XML Technical Working Group. “This now supports business to manufacturing transactions dealing with recipes, equipment, batch lists and product definitions. The process industries have requested this functionality from WBF. The WBF XML Technical Working Group has been able to develop and validate the new BatchML standard.”

“The update to B2MML and extensions to BatchML provide significant new integration functionality. They add user extensibility to BatchML, allowing end users and vendors to customize the schemas to match their business requirements, products, and applications,: said Brandl.

“Multiple companies are already developing products and tools that use the new definitions,” Brandl continued. “General Recipes are product definitions used in the process industries to define equipment independent processing. This version will add XML schema support for the ISA88 Part 3 General Recipe standard, and will provide these industries with a valuable tool to document, archive and exchange their process definitions.”

“The support of ISA88 Part 3 General and Site Recipes,” said Brandl, “greatly expands the ability to exchange data for more of the batch product life-cycle. General and Site Recipes enable the creation of corporate level, equipment independent recipes that define the processing, material requirements and equipment requirements for producing a product in different sites around the world.”

“This release continues the work of WBF in providing high value and easily available standards for the production industries,” said Maurice Wilkins, VP Yokogawa Global Strategic Technology Marketing Center, and Chairman of WBF. “The WBF schemas have become the most widely used business-to-business manufacturing integration standards, and the new version adds the functionality required for ISA88 support.”

Find more information about the new version at www.wbf.org.