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Mod. system

A simple approach to reducing the complexity of machines and plants and to increase the level of standardization is to formally model recurrent solutions in a modular system.

Components of the same design that are used multiple times in the feeder include cylinders, valves, and inductive/optical position sensors. Furthermore, the only difference between the X-axis and the Y-axis is the number of sensors; they can therefore be displayed in the modular system with several variants as a component that is used multiple times.

Abstract modeling of the specific assembly structure in the modular system makes it possible to map key relationships and thus avoid redundancy. Information regarding an inductive sensor, e.g., the price or how it is rendered in the wiring diagram, only has to be saved once in the modular system as a result; this is crucial for keeping the amount of time required to maintain complex models to a minimum.

All components of the feeder are specified as library components. During projection, the library components are added to a project (=instantiated, shown as a dotted arrow). The project components therefore do not themselves define the components; rather, they only reference to the library components. In the example Feeder, this results in a reduction in the number of components from 29 project components to 17 library components.

The aim of modular system development is to reduce the number of manual operations required to create a project-specific configuration to a minimum. The modular system should ensure that the project engineer is not required to instantiate all 29 components of the example project. If he, for example, incorporates an axis into a project, it should be clear that a cylinder and valve must also be instantiated. These predefined settings are made by means of the is contained in relation in the modular system.

To avoid redundancies, common features of the library components are further consolidated in a parent component. In the figure, the derived components are linked to their parent components from which they inherit properties by means of the is contained in relationship (an arrow with an empty triangle as its tip).