DEX Publication Project Phase I - OASIS



DEX PUBLICATION PROJECT

PHASE I

OASIS PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE SUPPORT (PLCS) TECHNICAL COMMITTEE

|Date of first issue: |Project No: |Det Norske Veritas AS |

| | |INFORMATION QUALITY MANAGEMENT|

| | | |

| | | |

| | |1322 Høvik |

| | |Norway |

| | |Tel: |

| | |Fax: |

| | | |

| | |NO 945 748 931 MVA |

|18.09.2008 | | |

|Approved by: |Organisational unit: | |

|Trine Hansen |ZNYNO472 Defence | |

|Client: |Client ref.: | |

|Steering Group for “DEX publication project, Phase I” | | |

|Summary: |

|This report presents results from project “DEX Publication Project Phase I”. The objective of the project was to deliver two PLCS Data EXchange |

|sets (DEX), “Task Set DEX” and “Aviation Maintenance DEX”, ready for publication in OASIS. |

| |

|The two DEXs and the required templates and reference data are well documented in the publication package and will therefore not be documented in |

|this report. |

| |

|In addition to lessons learned and proposed way forward, this report focuses on subjects and discussions that are not part of the publication |

|package and might be of interest for future activities. |

|Some results from the project: |

|“Task Set DEX “and “Aviation Maintenance DEX” were ready for publication March 08. Detailed checklist and guidance for development of templates and|

|DEXs are established and applied. |

|The work included harmonization of two task DEXs, a Norwegian “business DEX” and the draft OASIS task DEX. As a result from the harmonization |

|activity all data to be exchanged by Norwegian Defence Task DEX can be exchanged using the harmonized OASIS DEX. Method for harmonization of DEXs |

|is proposed. |

|A large set of templates are part of the publication package. These temples will make an important basis for all new DEXs. |

|An infrastructure supporting DEX development and publication need are developed and works well. |

| |

|Report No: |Subject Group: | | |

|2008-1342 | | |Indexing terms |

|Report title: | |Keywords |

|Final Report – DEX Publication Project Phase I | |PLCS |

| | |DEX |

| | |Template |

| | |Harmonization |

|Work carried out by: | |Service Area |

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| | | |

| | | |

| | |Market Sector |

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| | | |

|Trine Hansen | | |

|Work verified by: | | |

|Core Team | | |

|Date of this revision: |Revision No: |Number of pages: | | |

|15.12.2008 |2 |22 + Appedixes | | |

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Table of Contents Page

1 Introduction 1

2 Objectives and SCOPE 2

3 CONCLUSIons 3

4 Recommendations 4

4.1 Recommendations for Administrative activities 4

4.2 Recommendations for Technical issues 5

4.3 Recommendations for Deliverables 7

5 Way forward 8

6 Stakeholders and project organization 9

6.1 Stakeholders 9

6.2 Project Organization 10

7 Task Set DEX 11

7.1 Task Set DEX Scope 11

7.2 Harmonization of existing Task DEXs 12

7.3 Recommended method for harmonization of DEXs 12

7.4 Exchange Agreement 14

7.5 DEX Publication levels 15

8 Aviation Maintenance DEX 18

8.1 Aviation Maintenance DEX scope 18

8.2 Harmonization of feedback 19

9 Reference Data 20

9.1 Definition of Reference data and Reference Data Library 20

9.2 Review and Harmonization of Reference Data 20

9.3 Architecture for Reference Data Ontologies 20

9.4 Annotation properties 20

9.5 Reference Data Reference Documents 20

10 DEXLib Infrastructure 22

10.1 Specification for improvements and development of new functionalities 22

10.2 Configuration Change Management 22

10.3 Acceptance test 22

11 Issue tracking - Bugzilla 23

12 Project Deliverables 24

Appendix A – Publication Package 25

Appendix B – Project plan 26

Appendix C – DEXLib Information Pages 27

APPENDIX D - Acceptance test 28

APPENDIX E – DEX review Check list 29

APPENDIX F – Template review Check list 30

APPENDIX G – Capability review Check list 31

APPENDIX H –review Check list Information Pages 32

APPENDIX I – MOM Reference data Workshop 7-9 March 07 33

APPENDIX J – Core Team Reference Data Workshop July 07 34

APPENDIX K – Reference Data Experiences from the TLSS project 35

APPENDIX L – Norwegian Reference Data experiences 36

APPENDIX M – DEXLib Release Management Tool Specification 37

APPENDIX N – PLCS Ontologies 38

APPENDIX O – Harmonization of DEXs 39

Introduction

This report documents lessons learned from the “DEX Publication Project – Phase I” and proposes a way forward.

The richness of the generic PLCS data model invites interpretations and permits large and generic data contents to be implemented.

The exchange needs, however, are defined by projects and users owning the real data. Risks that single implementation projects will interpret the data model and map the data differently are high as long as standardised Data Exchange sets (DEX) are not available.

It is important that energy consumed on implementations are harmonised across projects and borders.

The DEX development started in April 2004. The development has been performed under the PLCS Technical Committee (TC) in OASIS. Voluntariness has been the working method. Despite more or less continuous work, the PLCS DEXs have not been completed for standardization.

In May 2006 the developer’s core team established a plan for completion of a set of DEXs and related capabilities, templates and reference data ready for publication. The main assumption for the plan was establishment of a ‘real’ project with dedicated and funded resources and a project manager.

In the OASIS PLCS TCs face-to-face meeting in Huntsville 1st November 2006 it was concluded to start the project when all funding were in place.

“DEX Publication project Phase I” started February 2007, with the following DEXs in scope:

• Task Set (Developed by OASIS PLCS TC)

• Maintenance Task Identification (Developed by NDLO)

• Aviation Maintenance (Developed by UK MOD and US DoD)

To capture as much as possible of the experience gained in this project, documents such as check lists, working documents, minutes etc. are attached as appendixes to this report.

Objectives and SCOPE

Objective

The overall objective of the project was to develop two DEXs ready for publication in OASIS. This includes consolidation of templates and reference data that are part of the scope. The supporting infrastructure, DEXLib, provided functionalities for development and publication activities.

Scope

Main deliverables from the project are

• “Task Set DEX” and “Aviation Maintenance DEX” ready for ballot in OASIS. This included harmonization of “Task Set DEX” developed by OASIS PLCS TC and “Maintenance Task Identification DEX” developed by NDLO.

• Develop templates needed by the two DEXs

• Develop and apply checklists for templates, reference data and DEXs according to agreements

• Develop new and improve existing functionalities in DEXLib infrastructure such as configuration change management, release environment improved template functionalities and long form generation.

• Documentation in DEXLib Help section (also called Information pages). Includes structuring existing documentation and document DEX architecture.

CONCLUSIons

Two DEXs, Task Set DEX and Aviation Maintenance DEX, have been developed according to agreed specifications and are sent out for OASIS ballot.

As part of the ballot package the following are sent out for ballot:

• DEX specifications

• All templates required for the two DEXs

• Reference data required by the two DEXs

• Infrastructure holding the DEXs, DEXLib

• Information pages

Recommendations

This chapter summarises recommendations based on lessons learned.

1 Recommendations for Administrative activities

1 Technical Oversight Group

There are several DEX development projects going on and there seems to be an increasing interest in PLCS. There is a need for day-to-day management of activities.

The development area (DEXLib) is confusing and may mislead newcomers to believe the complexity is higher that reality, and the maturity of the DEXs (those not being out for ballot) may be misinterpreted. How to improve communication of information in DEXLib and the “PLCS message” to the world should be investigated further.

Recommendation

A “Program management” activity should be established as soon as possible to assist and co-ordinate on-going and future DEX related development and other activities. A day-to-day administration of on-going and future activities is needed both on the technical side and information/marketing/sale side.

Dedicated resources shall be responsible for improvement of communicating the “PLCS message” and DEXLib information to the world.

This recommendation relates to activity 3 and 6 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

2 Organization of project activities

The DEX Publication project was in principal run as a “coordination” project. Most of the funding was provided by projects that had their own specific deliverables and activities. The role of the DEX Publication project was to coordinate these activities to ensure that the overall objectives of delivering two DEXs for ballot were met. It was a challenge to integrate the deliverables from the different projects into consistent delivery packages for the DEX Publication project. Furthermore, each of the projects had their own timescales that were not necessarily the same as the other projects or the DEX Publication project.

Recommendation

Running the DEX Publication project as a coordination project was challenging and should be avoided in following phases. It would be better to have a single coordinated, resourced project.

This recommendation relates to activity 1 and 2 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

3 Core Team

In addition to day-to-day administration of on-going and future activities there is continuously a need for technical assistance from resources with long experience from development and implementation of DEXs.

During Phase I the Core Team’s focus has primary been technical and modeller focused. Domain experts have been involved in development of scope for the DEXs and development of the information pages. There is a need for involvement of all competence categories required for DEX development in a Core Team for the following phases.

Recommendation

A Core Team should be identified for handling technical issues and architectural questions. The Core Team should be a sub-group of TOG.

All required competence categories required for DEX development should be represented in Core Team or in TOG.

This recommendation relates to activity 3 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

4 DEXLib Infrastructure

Day-to-day management of the server and DEXLib infrastructure is needed. It is also expected needs for re-structuring and further development of the tool in a long-term perspective.

Recommendation

Management and support of DEXLib infrastructure is recommended as part of the day-to-day management of PLCS and DEXs.

This recommendation relates to activity 5 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

5 DEX Ballot process

A ballot process will follow the deliverables from this project. Issues will be identified and issue resolutions will probably be required.

Recommendation

Involvement of Core Team from Phase I is recommended for filtering ballot issues and assist the ballot resolution activities. Core Team represents long history and experience that is of great value for issue resolution activities.

There is a high risk for misinterpretations if new editors take over existing template and DEX documentation.

Complete Task DEX and Aviation M DEX, which includes addressing ballot comments and complete the related capabilities.

Have the two DEXs tested in Implementers Forum.

It is also recommended to visit issues in Bugzilla in relation to the ballot process.

This recommendation relates to activity 4 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

2 Recommendations for Technical issues

1 Exchange Agreements and Messages

Exchange Agreements have been discussed in the Task Set DEX harmonization team. The results from these discussions have been made visible through minutes but not been on the agenda in Core Team meetings so far.

Recommendation

Exchange Agreements and use of Messages should be further investigated in the following phase.

2 Harmonization of DEXs

Harmonization effort and importance of harmonization shall not be underrated. This comment is valid for all levels of harmonization, such as domain expert level for scoping of DEXs, PLCS solution and reference data definitions.

An overall objective of the TC should be to harmonize and standardize DEXs, templates, capabilities and reference data and provide guidance for how to achieve this.

Today there is lots of business DEXs and business templates published on DEXLib. It might be a challenge having all this through harmonization and probably some stakeholders are not interested in harmonisation and standardization.

Recommendation

The TC should encourage to harmonization and standardization of business DEXs, business templates etc. This should be ensured through Contracts.

The TC should establish a formulation to be used for Contractors ensuring the harmonization aspect will be taken care off in future projects.

There is a risk having lots of proprietary PLCS implementations, which is not in line with the original vision of PLCS and DEXs.

3 Test data

Each DEX must have a set of test files/test data. Test data is required both for the interpretation of the DEX specification and for test purposes.

Recommendation

Establish test data for each of the DEXs. Test the DEXs in an Implementers Forum.

Development of DEX examples should be part of this activity.

This recommendation relates to activity 13 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

4 PLCS web service

In line with increasing PLCS implementations it seems to be an increasing demand for web services to support PLCS.

Recommendation

Develop and standardize web services to support PLCS.

This recommendation relates to activity 16 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

5 Exchange Agreements and Message

Neither Messages nor Exchange Agreements have been tested. Exchange Agreements have been discussed in the Task Set DEX harmonization team, but not in Core Team or TOG.

Recommendations

When specification or guideline for Exchange Agreement and use of Messages is available it is recommended to have these tested as part of the DEX testing.

3 Recommendations for Deliverables

1 Checklists

Review checklists were developed in Phase I. Issues related to the checklists were identified by reviewers in the review process. It is also expected comments to checklists during ballot process.

Recommendation

Review and update checklist based on experience from review and ballot process.

This recommendation relates to activity 12 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

2 Test DEXs

Two DEXs and approximately hundred templates are out for ballot. One main objective of the DEXs was to achieve unambiguous specifications. This has not been demonstrated yet.

Recommendation

The Task Set DEX and Aviation Maintenance DEX should be tested in an Implementers Forum.

This recommendation relates to activity 13 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

3 Robustness of DEX architecture

The DEXs sent out for ballot relates to a stable DEX architecture which is documented as part of the publication package.

It is expected that concepts like “reference data”, “reference data ontology”, “business objects”, “rules” and “exchange agreements” will be subjects for discussions in future activities.

Recommendation

The future TOG and/or Core Team should revisit the DEX architecture and make space for possible extensions in the DEX architecture if required. This recommendation may also be addressed by Implementers Forum.

This recommendation relates to activity 6, 8 and 10 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

4 Reference data

There are still challenges related to development and harmonization of reference data. There are weakness points in the applied ontology that also might be challenging in a long term range.

Recommendation

Further investments on all aspects of reference data for DEXs should be explored.

Reference data should also be part of the test scenarios for Implementers Forum.

This recommendation relates to activity 8 in chapter 5 “Way forward”.

Way forward

A proposed way forward has been documented as input to a new project plan; reference should be made to Appendix A. The proposed way forward is a delivery from a core team workshop 15-18 April 08.

Proposed main activities are listed in Table below. The activities are given priority 1-3, where priority 1 is assigned to the most important ones in a short term range. The activities inside each of the 3 priority groups are considered to be equally important.

|# |Activity |Priority |Codes |Cost estimate |

| | | | |(hours) |

|2 |Establish a funded project |1 |DEX completion |140 |

|3 |Project management (Phase II) |1 |DEX completion |NN |

|4 |Address ballot issues |1 |DEX completion |940 |

|5 |DEXLib infrastructure |1 |DEX completion |700 |

|6 |Management of "PLCS_resources" |2 |  |150 |

|7 |Develop DEX Examples |2 |For Impl.Forum |850 |

|8 |Reference data |2 |For new DEXs |300 |

|9 |Information pages |1 |From Phase I, for new |500 |

| | | |DEXs | |

|10 |Capabilities |2 |From Phase I, for |1950 |

| | | |Impl.Forum | |

|11 |AP239 second edition |2 |  |1640 |

|12 |Update Checklists |2 |For new DEXs |200 |

|13 |Implementers Forum |2 |  |NN |

|14 |Marketing |2 |  |NN |

|15 |Harmonization with other |2 |  |NN |

| |standards/guidelines | | | |

|16 |Develop and standardise Web Services |2 |  |NN |

|17 |Develop new DEXs |3 |  |5000 |

|18 |Capabilities for new DEXs |3 |  |1250 |

|19 |Extensions to the Template language |3 |  |750 |

|  |SUM |

|/2/ |ISO 11179, Information technology – Metadata registries Part 4 Formulation of data definitions. |

|/3/ |ISO 15926 Integration of life-cycle data for oil and gas production facilities. Part 6. (draft version): Scope and methodology |

| |for developing additional reference data |

|/4/ |OASIS Universal Business Language |

|/5/ |UN/CEFACT Core Components Technical specification 2.01 / ISO 15000 |

|/6/ |OWL (Web ontology language) |

|/7/ |RDF (Resource Description Framework) |

|/8/ |UML (Unified Modelling Language) |

DEXLib Infrastructure

1 Specification for improvements and development of new functionalities

Reference should be made to project plan,Appendix A, for description of activities and deliverables for the new version of DEXLib infrastructure tool.

2 Configuration Change Management

A separate specification for the DEXlib Release Management Tool Specification was established. Reference should be made to Appendix M.

3 Acceptance test

A successful acceptance test was performed 26 November 07. The checklist is attached, see Appendix D.

Issue tracking - Bugzilla

All issues that are not template specific have been recorded in Bugzilla, which have been made available for the Core Team.

Bugzilla has worked well, and it should be a decision in TOG how to proceed issue tracking.

Project Deliverables

The deliverables from the project are listed below:

• Publication package containing

o Task Set DEX

o Aviation maintenance DEX

o Templates

o Reference data

o Information pages

• Report “DEX Publication Project Phase I”, document number 2008-1342

Appendix A – Publication Package

Reference should be made to the publication package:



Click on “A baselined release of DEXLib”. The publication package is available as a zip file.

Appendix B – Project plan

The project plan is attached as a separate document, “App_B_DEX_Publication_Project_Plan_version_20070423.doc”.

Appendix C – DEXLib Information Pages

Reference should be made to the publication package:



Click on “2.0 PLCS DEX Main Page” in section “Table of Contents”.

Then click on “Help/Information” in the upper menu of the page.

APPENDIX D - Acceptance test

This appendix contains the checklist for the acceptance test of the functionalities developed for the infrastructure tool DEXLib.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_D_DEXLib_Acceptance_test_Checklist_v4.doc”.

APPENDIX E – DEX review Check list

This appendix contains the checklist for review of DEXs.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_E_DEX_Review_Checklist_20080213.doc”.

APPENDIX F – Template review Check list

This appendix contains the checklist for review of Templates.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_F_Template_Review_Checklist.doc”.

APPENDIX G – Capability review Check list

This appendix contains the checklist for review of Capabilities.

Capabilities have not been part of scope for this project. The checklist is from previous activities.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_G_Capability_review_checklist.doc”.

APPENDIX H –review Check list Information Pages

This appendix contains the checklist for review of input to Information pages.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_H_Help_and_Info_Review_Checklist.doc”.

APPENDIX I – MOM Reference data Workshop 7-9 March 07

This appendix contains Minutes from Core Team reference data workshop in Stockholm 7-9 March 07.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_I_Stockholm_7-9_March_07_MOM.zip”.

APPENDIX J – Core Team Reference Data Workshop July 07

This appendix contains presentation from Core Team workshop in London July 2007.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_J_Reference Data Life Cycle Development_V2.ppt”.

APPENDIX K – Reference Data Experiences from the TLSS project

This appendix contains a document written for UK MOD’s TLSS (Through Life Support Standard) project.

NOTE: At the time of writing the TLSS activities within MOD are being merged into the LCIA (Logistics Coherence Information Architecture) activities within UK MOD. Work on Business DEX development is being continued.

NOTE: Later/newer version of this document is available on DEXLib.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_K_Reference Data Development Methodology report_1.0.pdf”.

APPENDIX L – Norwegian Reference Data experiences

This appendix contains a document written by DNV based on experiences from the Norwegian Defence Frigate acquisition project.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_L_Supplementary Guidlines for Reference Data Development.doc”.

APPENDIX M – DEXLib Release Management Tool Specification

This appendix contains a specification for the DEXlib Release Management Tool Specification.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_M_DEXlib Release management tool spec 0.3.pdf”.

APPENDIX N – PLCS Ontologies

This appendix contains results from a discussion in Core Team workshop in London July 07.

Reference should be made to attached document “App_N_PLCS ontologies and their development process v1 0.ppt”.

APPENDIX O – Harmonization of DEXs

Reference should be made to attached document “App_O_Harmonization_of_DEXs_Units of functionality.xls” which provides an example of the method/tool for harmonization between two DEXs.

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