Development of a generic networking utility for FMC control

In today's global marketplace, industries try to compete with cost-effective products engineered using emerging techniques like CIM which rely heavily on computers and information interchange among them. The active involvement of various automation technologies in manufacturing has had a very positive effect, but it has also led to the creation of various incompatibilities and given rise to situations commonly known as 'Islands of Automation'. The implementation of MAP and TOP bridged the lack of communication between host computers, but there still exists an 'Island of Automation' between the controllers and host computers. This effort is directed towards connecting these different 'Islands of automation'. The objective is to create a generic hook up utility between host computers which handle high-level decisions and dedicated controllers. This gives the controllers various facilities to interact, report, query and co-ordinate activities with computers located anywhere on the Internet.