World Batch Forum releases XML schemas

In my October 2003 article (p.46) titled, “XML Delivers” I wrote about two early adopters of the ANSI/ISA S95 standard “Enterprise-control system integration,” Empresas Polar in Caracas, Venezuela, and Europe-based Arla Foods.In addition to adopting the ANSI/ISA S95 standard, both companies also embraced early versions of the World Batch Forum ’s (WBF) B2MML (batch to manufacturing markup language.)

MPR (www.grupompr.com) senior consultant Alejandro Imass on the Empress Foods integration project shared that the use of S95, XML, and B2MML provided the project significant implementation timesavings. Imass indicated MPR accomplished in five weeks what would have traditional taken nearly a year to complete.

WBF recently released version 2.0 of its B2MML and batch markup language (BatchML).

Dave Emerson, chairman of WBF’s XML working group says, “The new versions of these XML schemas are major steps forward in integrating business and manufacturing systems. Feedback from early implementations shows the benefits that can be obtained from a vendor-independent standard for manufacturing system data exchange.”

The WBF schemas can be used free of charge and are available on the WBF web site .

—Dave Harrold, senior editor, Control Engineering, dharrold@reedbusiness.com

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