2008 International Conference on Computer and Electrical Engineering
Modeling of Equipment Maintenance Support System Domain Library and Its
Application in HLA Simulation System
Changzheng QU Liu ZHANG Yongli YU Songshan WANG
（Maintenance Engineering Institution, Mechanical Engineering College, Shijiazhuang, China）
Abstract
Applying domain engineering, the equipment
maintenance support system is analyzed and the essential
entities are abstracted. Using the executable
specification tool---ExSpect, a domain library is
constructed, including maintenance organization module,
distribution stock module, transport unit module and
management department module. By constructing the
simulation Object Model (SOM) and the Interface with
Run-Time Infrastructure (RTI), the modules are applied
on the High Level Architecture (HLA).
1. Introduction
The operation relies on the equipment support
increasingly and which makes it much more important to
study the equipment maintenance support system (EMSS)
in order to improve effectiveness. Model and simulation
is a powerful tool to study the effectiveness of equipment
maintenance support system. By the simulation software
development, it is more important to increase the
productivity of the modeling process and the reusability
is a good way.
Domain engineering is the process establishing
fundamental capability and necessary basis for the
application engineering of a group of similar system. It
covers all the activities to build reusable software
components. Domain engineering helps to solve the
identification, organization and utilization of reusable
information, so it provides powerful support for software
reuse. Domain engineering promises to produce
978-0-7695-3504-3/08 $25.00 © 2008 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICCEE.2008.182
component with higher reusability. Domain analysis is
major method of domain engineering, and the result of it
is domain module, which compose the domain library.
The two main reasons to develop an equipment
maintenance support library are:
• An equipment maintenance support library
facilitates and speeds up the modeling process
• An equipment maintenance support library can be
used to capture and distribute logistic knowledge
2. Equipment Maintenance Support System
Domain Analysis
Equipment maintenance support system is a
complicated system which, created for implementing the
operations mission by the combination of the series
activity of material supply, maintenance, employment
and management of the materiel, consists of the
operations materiel support resources, such as hardware,
software, personnel and management for creating,
maintaining and resuming the materiel scale and perfect
technology state.
The major entities of the equipment maintenance
support system are equipment management department,
transportation team, maintenance organization and
distribution stock. The Maintain system receives the
equipment needed to maintain according to the Repair
Command. If the exiting resource can not satisfy the
request, it sends supply request to management
department. When resource satisfied, the maintenance
process is executed. The Resource Stock system store
spare parts and apply to maintain system. The equipment
management department is represented by the
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management system. It make repair decision based on the To improve the modeling efficiency, we propose the
equipment fault information send by the user system and development of domain specification libraries of reusable
send to the maintain system. When maintain system have components. The use of these reusable components
the resource short report, it commands the stock to apply instead of ad hoc definitions, results in a high level
spare or ask upper equipment maintenance support specification of the system, i.e. the size and complexity
system to support. The equipment user system uses the of the specification is reduced.
equipment and produces the fault information. Send the As the result of domain analysis, the essence entities
equipment to the local maintain system or upper. of the equipment maintenance support system are
equipment management department, transportation team,
maintenance organization and distribution stock. The
header of system module in ExSpect can be expressed as
follow.
System management department:
[in: repair_request,
supply_request;
out: repair_plan,
supply_command,
Fig 1 the relationship of entities of EMSS repair_command,
val: mean_management_delay_time]
3. Domain Library Construction Using System transportation team:
ExSpect [in: bad_equipment,
finished_equipment;
We use Executable specification tool—ExSpect to out: equipment_to_repair,
construct domain library, which is based on colored equipment_return,
timed Petri net. The language ExSpect consists of two val: transport_velocity,
parts: a functional part and a dynamic part. The tools_number]
functional part is used to define types and functions System maintenance organization:
needed to describe the operations on the value of a token. [in: repair_command,
The dynamic part of ExSpect is used to specify a network equipment_to_repair,
of transitions and places, and therefore, the interaction distribution_spare;
structure of a system. The behavior of a transition, i.e. the out: finished_equipment,
number of tokens produced and their values, is described supply_request;
by functions. The language also has a hierarchical val: team_number,
construct called system. A system is a subnet, i.e. an fun:repair_time[equipment-fault model],
aggregate of places and transitions and (perhaps) request_spare_rate[equipment-fault model] ]
subsystems. The system concept supports both top-down System distribution stock:
and bottom-up design. A system can have a number of [in: supply_command;
parameters. As a result, a system can be customized or out: distribution_spare;
fine-tuned for a specific situation. This way it is possible val: mean_supply_delay_time]
to define generic system specifications, which are easy to In the system definitions, the parameter in represents
reuse. the system input, the parameter out represents the system

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output and the parameter val is the system attribution
value. The fun means function, which can calculate some
value by the parameter. In the System maintenance
organization, the repair time is the function of
equipment-fault model and can be calculate.
The entity relation can be seen from the system
interface. We take the maintenance organization for
example to specify the detail. The maintenance
organization system can be specified as follow:
o i

supply_request distribution_spare

start
waiting
spare_unsatisfied spare_arrived repairing finished_equipment
i
repair_command ready start need_spare o
prepare fault_diagnose random repair_go_on
repair finised

i team
spare_satisfied
equipment_to_repair

Fig.2 maintenance organization system model

4. Modeling Equipment Maintenance

Support System Based on Domain Library

There are two way to use the domain library. One way
is to install the module to compose the support system in
ExSpect modeling and simulation environment. The
other way is to use the module in other application by
ExSpect COM component ， which is provide by
ExServer component of ExSpect software package. It
makes the module can be used in the distribution Fig.3 EMSS simulation model in ExSpect
simulation environment (such as High Level Architecture, The ExSpect COM component provides elementary
HLA). function to control the modules in user program. A
The module can be drawn to reuse in the ExSpect simple example in VB.net is as follow.
modeling and simulation environment. Installed the Public WithEvents ExObj As EXSERVLib. CExServ
//declare EXSERVLib. CExServ class libraries
modules by channels and set the parameters, the ExObj ＝ New EXSERVLib. CExServ
//define object of class CExServ
equipment support system can be composed. A typical Call ExObj. Init( PathName, Model, Sys)
organizational maintenance support system model is as // initialize model
Call ExObj. ProduceToken( "placename"，token-information, time )
fig.3: // transform information in place
Call ExObj.Continue() //start simulation
Call ExObj. TracePlace(placename)
// trigger the event Present
Private Sub ExObj_Present(TokenlD, Place, Time) Handles
ExObj.Present //Present event handing grogram
User program
End Sub
The complex control function can be implemented by
using other methods and events of class library.

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 We applied the modules on the MAK-RTI to compose
the distribution simulation environment. The sketch map
of software structure is as follows:

Fig.4 EMSS architecture on HLA Fig.6 task completing time

The federate objects interact with each other by the

RTI (Run Time Infrastructure). To reuse the ExSpect
5 conclusion
module in HLA, it needs to construct the simulation
To improve the system effectiveness, it is necessary to
Object Model (SOM) to describe the interaction class,
develop a domain library to support the module reusing.
object class and its attribution, which can be abstracted
By the ExSpect COM component, EMSS module is
from the domain analysis and module.
applied in the HLA simulation system, which improves
The Object Class of maintenance organization
effectiveness tremendously.
federate is Repair_Team, which attribution is ID,
Position and State. The Interaction Class include:
Spare_Request, which attribution is Spare_Type and
Acknowledgment
Spare_Num; Finished_equipment, which attribution is
The authors would like to acknowledge the Integrate
Equipment_ID.
Support Team of Maintenance Engineering Institute
Based on the SOM, it needs to develop an interface to
(MEI). The Team members include NIE Chenglong,
connect the ExSpect module with other Federate Object,
ZHANG Yan-zhong, LI Shi-ying, XU Ying, XUE
which includes the interface to the RTI and to ExSpect
Wen-li, LI Dong-dong, and ZHANG Bo.
module. The interface to RTI is implemented by the RTI
Function and the latter by ExSpect COM component.
The federate objects simulation process is as follows:
References:

[1] ExSpect User Manual Management & ICT Consultants

Fig.5 federate objects simulation process
By the simulation, the performance of maintenance
support can be analyzed. The task completing time of a
organizational maintenance support system is show as
fig.6.
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