Standardized product ontology register and transfer by spreadsheets - Part 5: Interface for activity description (IEC 62656-5:2017)

IEC 62656-5:2017 specifies a method for representing activities and relations among the activities by a tabular ontology representation, called “parcellized activity model” or PAM for short, which is a specialized use of a generic tabular ontology data model, known as the parcellized ontology model (POM) defined in Part 1 of the IEC 62656 series. The activities that can be described by this document include part or whole of an enterprise, an organization or a collection of services, a set of events or processes which interact with each other by exchanging physical or non-physical entities. This part of IEC 62656 also defines a method for uniquely identifying activities, or their homologues happenings in a certain sequence. In addition, this document identifies flows of information, objects or materials exchanged among activities, where each of the activities is represented by a class and each flow by a relation.

Standardisierte Übertragung und Registrierung von Ontologien für Produkte mittels Tabellen - Teil 5: Schnittstelle für die Beschreibung von Aktivitäten (IEC 62656-5:2017)

Enregistrement d'ontologie de produits normalisés et transfert par tableurs - Partie 5: Interface pour la description des activités (IEC 62656-5:2017)

L’IEC 62656-5:2017 définit une méthode permettant de représenter les activités et leurs interrelations, par une représentation d’ontologie tabulaire appelée “modèle d’activité par paquet” ou PAM. Il s’agit d’une utilisation spécialisée d’un modèle tabulaire générique de données d’ontologie, désigné par modèle d’ontologie par paquet (POM) et défini dans la Partie 1 de la série IEC 62656. Les activités qui peuvent être décrites par le présent document concernent une partie ou la totalité des activités d’une entreprise, d’une organisation ou d'un ensemble de services, un ensemble d’événements ou de processus qui interagissent en échangeant des entités physiques ou non physiques. La présente partie de l’IEC 62656 définit également une méthode permettant d’identifier les activités de façon unique, ou leurs équivalents se produisant selon une séquence donnée. De plus, le présent document identifie les flux d’informations, d’objets ou de matériaux échangés entre les activités, chaque activité étant représentée par une classe et chaque flux par une relation.

Register ontologije standardiziranih izdelkov in prenos prek razpredelnic - 5. del: Vmesnik za opis aktivnosti (IEC 62656-5:2017)

Ta del standarda IEC 62656 določa metodo za ontološko predstavitev dejavnosti in razmerij med dejavnostmi s pomočjo preglednic, imenovano »parcelizirani model aktivnosti (PAM)«, ki je specializirana uporaba splošnega ontološkega podatkovnega modela s pomočjo preglednic, imenovanega »parcelizirani ontološki model (POM)«, kot je opredeljeno 1. delu skupine standardov IEC 62656. Aktivnosti, ki jih lahko opisuje ta dokument, vključujejo del podjetja ali celotno podjetje, organizacijo ali zbirko storitev, niz dogodkov ali procesov, ki medsebojno komunicirajo na podlagi izmenjave fizičnih ali nefizičnih entitet. Ta del standarda IEC 62656 določa tudi metodo za enolično identifikacijo dejavnosti ali njihovih homolognih dogodkov v določenem zaporedju. Poleg tega so v tem dokumentu opredeljeni pretoki informacij, objektov ali materialov, ki se izmenjujejo med aktivnostmi, pri čemer vsako aktivnost označuje razred in vsak tok razmerje. Ta dokument tako omogoča opredelitev, klasifikacijo in identifikacijo sklopa aktivnosti kot dela normalizirane ontologije. To omogoča registriranje vzorca aktivnosti kot nabora metapodatkov in njegovo nalaganje v skupni podatkovni slovar (CDD) v skladu s standardom IEC 61360, ki se vzdržuje kot spletna zbirka podatkov o elektrotehničnih konceptih.
Poleg tega ta del standarda IEC 62656 zagotavlja metodo za integracijo ontologij proizvodov in aktivnosti, vključno s storitvami, v enotnem modelu. To pomeni, da je funkcionalnost proizvoda mogoče analizirati v okviru njegovega delovanja. Takšen integriran pogled bo posameznikom iz različnih tehničnih okolij omogočil pridobivanje in deljenje znanja o obsegu podjetja, ki obravnava proizvode in storitve kot nepogrešljive vire. Poleg tega bo takšna predstavitev podatkov v pomoč pri analizi ključnih funkcionalnosti podjetja in njegovih razpoložljivih virov z jasnimi opredelitvami, omejitvami ter njihovimi interakcijami, kadar se je treba odzvati na nov zunanji pogoj ali okoliščine v kratkem času, zlasti v nujnem primeru ali ob naravnih nesrečah.
Namen tega dela standarda IEC62656 sicer ni podajanje podrobnega algoritmičnega opisa pretoka informacij ali časovnega razporeda procesov ali dogodkov, ki bodo potrebni v fazi programskega načrtovanja ali programiranja v okviru informacijskega sistema, ki obravnava aktivnosti ali dogodke. Te podrobne specifikacije algoritmov in povezane izdelave podatkovnih struktur se obdelujejo z metodologijo in orodji za programsko inženirstvo, kjer so že vzpostavljeni številni pristopi in slogi, kot so UML (poenoten jezik za modeliranje), BPMN, SysML, DFD, IDEF in druga orodja CASE (računalniško podprto razvijanje programske opreme).
Namen tega mednarodnega standarda ni standardizacija ali uvajanje nove metode grafičnega opisa za aktivnosti ali procese. V najboljšem primeru je mogoče ontologijo aktivnosti, modelirano v skladu s tem mednarodnim standardom, izraziti z več obstoječimi grafičnimi orodji za predstavitev in jeziki za opis procesov za aktivnosti.
Kljub temu so nekatere grafične predstavitve v slogu takšnih orodij ali jezikov uporabne za to, da posameznikom omogočijo razumevanje vsebine parceliziranega modela aktivnosti, in so zato uporabljene v tem mednarodnem standardu. V večini primerov se za ta namen prednostno uporablja IDEF-0, ker opisuje tako aktivnosti kot pretok zadev med aktivnostmi, vendar se lahko uporabijo tudi druge možnosti orodij ali jezikov, če so te primerne in ustrezne.

General Information

Status
Published
Publication Date
03-Jan-2018
Current Stage
6060 - National Implementation/Publication (Adopted Project)
Start Date
07-Nov-2017
Due Date
12-Jan-2018
Completion Date
04-Jan-2018
Standard
SIST EN 62656-5:2018 - BARVE
English language
62 pages
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Standards Content (Sample)


SLOVENSKI STANDARD
01-februar-2018
Register ontologije standardiziranih izdelkov in prenos prek razpredelnic - 5. del:
Vmesnik za opis aktivnosti (IEC 62656-5:2017)
Standardized product ontology register and transfer by spreadsheets - Part 5: Interface
for activity description (IEC 62656-5:2017)
Standardisierte Übertragung und Registrierung von Ontologien für Produkte mittels
Tabellen - Teil 5: Schnittstelle für die Beschreibung von Aktivitäten (IEC 62656-5:2017)
Enregistrement d'ontologie de produits normalisés et transfert par tableurs - Partie 5:
Interface pour la description des activités (IEC 62656-5:2017)
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: EN 62656-5:2017
ICS:
01.110 7HKQLþQDGRNXPHQWDFLMD]D Technical product
L]GHONH documentation
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

EUROPEAN STANDARD EN 62656-5
NORME EUROPÉENNE
EUROPÄISCHE NORM
October 2017
ICS 01.040.01; 01.110
English Version
Standardized product ontology register
and transfer by spreadsheets -
Part 5: Interface for activity description
(IEC 62656-5:2017)
Enregistrement d'ontologie de produits normalisés  Standardisierte Übertragung und Registrierung
et transfert par tableurs - von Ontologien für Produkte mittels Tabellen -
Partie 5: Interface pour la description des activités Teil 5: Schnittstelle für die Beschreibung von Aktivitäten
(IEC 62656-5:2017) (IEC 62656-5:2017)
This European Standard was approved by CENELEC on 2017-07-24. CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC
Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.
Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC
Management Centre or to any CENELEC member.
This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation
under the responsibility of a CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the
same status as the official versions.
CENELEC members are the national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization
Comité Européen de Normalisation Electrotechnique
Europäisches Komitee für Elektrotechnische Normung
CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels
© 2017 CENELEC All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved worldwide for CENELEC Members.
Ref. No. EN 62656-5:2017 E
European foreword
The text of document 3D/257/CDV, future edition 1 of IEC 62656-5, prepared by SC 3D "Product
properties and classes and their identification", of IEC/TC 3 "Information structures and elements,
identification and marking principles, documentation and graphical symbols" was submitted to the IEC-
CENELEC parallel vote and approved by CENELEC as EN 62656-5:2017.
The following dates are fixed:
• latest date by which the document has to be implemented at (dop) 2018-04-24
national level by publication of an identical national
standard or by endorsement
• latest date by which the national standards conflicting with (dow) 2020-07-24
the document have to be withdrawn

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. CENELEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
Endorsement notice
The text of the International Standard IEC 62656-5:2017 was approved by CENELEC as a European
Standard without any modification.
In the official version, for Bibliography, the following note has to be added for the standard indicated :
IEC 62656-3:2015 NOTE Harmonized as EN 62656-3:2015 (not modified).
Annex ZA
(normative)
Normative references to international publications
with their corresponding European publications
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content
constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For
undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments)
applies.
NOTE 1 When an International Publication has been modified by common modifications, indicated by (mod),
the relevant EN/HD applies.
NOTE 2 Up-to-date information on the latest versions of the European Standards listed in this annex is
available here: www.cenelec.eu.

Publication Year Title EN/HD Year
IEC 61360-2 2012 Standard data element types with EN 61360-2 2013
associated classification scheme for
electric components - Part 2: EXPRESS
dictionary schema
IEC 61360-4 -  Standard data element types with - -
associated classification scheme for
electric components - Part 4: IEC
reference collection of standard data
element types and component classes
IEC 62656-1 -  Standardized product ontology register EN 62656-1 -
and transfer by spreadsheets - Part 1:
Logical structure for data parcels
IEC 62264-3 2007 Enterprise-control system integration - EN 62264-3 2007
Part 3: Activity models of manufacturing
operations management
ISO 13584-24 -  Industrial automation systems and - -
integration - Parts library - Part 24:
Logical resource: Logical model of
supplier library
ISO 13584-42 2010 Industrial automation systems and - -
integration - Parts library - Part 42:
Description methodology: Methodology
for structuring parts families

IEC 62656-5 ®
Edition 1.0 2017-06
INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD
NORME
INTERNATIONALE
colour
inside
Standardized product ontology register and transfer by spreadsheets –

Part 5: Interface for activity description

Enregistrement d'ontologie de produits normalisés et transfert par tableurs –

Partie 5: Interface pour la description des activités

INTERNATIONAL
ELECTROTECHNICAL
COMMISSION
COMMISSION
ELECTROTECHNIQUE
INTERNATIONALE
ICS 01.040.01; 01.110 ISBN 978-2-8322-4369-5

– 2 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
CONTENTS
FOREWORD . 4
1 Scope . 6
2 Normative references . 7
3 Terms, definitions and abbreviations . 7
3.1 Terms and definitions. 7
3.2 Abbreviations . 9
4 Overview . 9
4.1 Activity described as an ontology . 9
4.2 Use cases and key technical concepts . 10
4.3 Relation among properties of different activities . 14
4.4 International Concept Identifier (ICID) . 14
5 Basic structure of the PAM . 14
5.1 Activity and arrows. 14
5.2 Subactivities . 15
5.2.1 General . 15
5.2.2 Specialized activity . 15
5.2.3 Component activity . 15
5.3 ICOM representation . 16
5.4 Role of the mechanism (M) in the PAM . 16
5.5 External function call . 17
5.6 Basic PAM notation with function symbols . 17
5.7 Joining arrows . 20
5.8 Forking arrows . 21
5.9 Branching or joining of arrows . 21
5.10 Transcendental arrows . 22
5.10.1 General . 22
5.10.2 Modelling incoming arrows . 24
5.10.3 Modelling outgoing arrows . 24
5.10.4 Modelling connections of arrows at frame boundary . 25
5.10.5 Contracted form of representation for branching and joining arrows . 26
5.10.6 Domain or codomain overloading for transcendent arrows . 27
5.11 Extended semantics beyond IDEF0 . 28
5.11.1 Specialized types of activity and its icon . 28
5.11.2 Conjunction node . 30
5.11.3 Disjunction node . 30
5.11.4 Complementation node . 31
5.11.5 Selection node . 31
5.11.6 Transformation node . 31
5.11.7 Decision tree . 31
5.12 Graphic properties of arrows . 31
5.13 Arrow specialization . 31
5.14 Delegated formula interpretation . 32
Annex A (normative) Meta-properties for activity description . 34
A.1 General . 34
A.2 List of meta-properties . 34
Annex B (informative) Description examples for the PAM . 37

IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017 – 3 –
B.1 Design product. 37
B.2 Sample IDEF0 Diagram . 48
Annex C (informative) Example PAM data for production operations management . 51
Bibliography . 59

Figure 1 – See fine arts at Museum . 11
Figure 2 – Production operations management (extracted from IEC 62264-3) . 12
Figure 3 – Production operations management modelled in PAM and depicted as IDEF-
0 diagram . 13
Figure 4 – Basic activity and its subcomponents . 16
Figure 5 – Corresponding IDEF0 diagram for basic PAM notation . 18
Figure 6 – Sample activity drawing in IDEF0 and ICOM . 19
Figure 7 – Subactivities and arrows . 19
Figure 8 – Joining arrow example . 20
Figure 9 – Forking arrow example . 22
Figure 10 – Transcendental arrows to be taken over by child nodes . 23
Figure 11 – Transcendental arrows from the parent node . 23
Figure 12 – IDEF0 extension for specialized activity node in the PAM . 29
Figure 13 – An implementation example of Conjunction node in the PAM . 30
Figure 14 – Super relation and its application for specialized activity . 32
Figure B.1 – Class meta-class example of the PAM for “design product” activity . 38
Figure B.2 – Property meta-class example of the PAM for “design product” activity . 40
Figure B.3 – Relation meta-class example of the PAM for “design product” activity . 42
Figure B.4 – IDEF0 diagram image corresponding to A-0 (frame containing A0) . 49
Figure B.5 – IDEF0 diagram image corresponding to A0 (frame containing subactivities
of A0) . 50
Figure C.1 – Class meta-class example for production operations management defined
in IEC 62264-3 . 52
Figure C.2 – Property meta-class example for production operations management
defined in IEC 62264-3 . 53
Figure C.3 – Relation meta-class example for production operations management
defined in IEC 62264-3 . 54
Figure C.4 – Autogenerated IDEF 0 A-0 (top) node for production operations
management defined in IEC 62264-3 . 57
Figure C.5 – Autogenerated IDEF A0 node for production operations management
defined in IEC 62264-3 . 58

Table 1 – Basic PAM notation for arrows . 18
Table 2 – Extracts of relation meta-class definitions for activities . 26
Table 3 – Contracted representation for connectivity of activities . 28
Table 4 – Reserved keywords for formula interpretation . 33
Table A.1 – Meta-properties of relation meta-class used for activity description . 35

– 4 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION
____________
STANDARDIZED PRODUCT ONTOLOGY REGISTER
AND TRANSFER BY SPREADSHEETS –

Part 5: Interface for activity description

FOREWORD
1) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote
international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To
this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications,
Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as “IEC
Publication(s)”). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested
in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-
governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely
with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by
agreement between the two organizations.
2) The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international
consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all
interested IEC National Committees.
3) IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National
Committees in that sense. While all reasonable efforts are made to ensure that the technical content of IEC
Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any
misinterpretation by any end user.
4) In order to promote international uniformity, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC Publications
transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional publications. Any divergence
between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in
the latter.
5) IEC itself does not provide any attestation of conformity. Independent certification bodies provide conformity
assessment services and, in some areas, access to IEC marks of conformity. IEC is not responsible for any
services carried out by independent certification bodies.
6) All users should ensure that they have the latest edition of this publication.
7) No liability shall attach to IEC or its directors, employees, servants or agents including individual experts and
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other damage of any nature whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, or for costs (including legal fees) and
expenses arising out of the publication, use of, or reliance upon, this IEC Publication or any other IEC
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8) Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is
indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
9) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this IEC Publication may be the subject of
patent rights. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
International Standard IEC 62656-5 has been prepared by subcommittee 3D: Product
properties and classes and their identification, of IEC technical committee 3: Information
structures and elements, identification and marking principles, documentation and graphical
symbols.
The text of this International Standard is based on the following documents:
CDV Report on voting
3D/257/CDV 3D/287/RVC
Full information on the voting for the approval of this International Standard can be found in
the report on voting indicated in the above table.
This document has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.

IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017 – 5 –
A list of all parts in the IEC 62656 series, published under the general title Standardized
product ontology register and transfer by spreadsheets, can be found on the IEC website.
The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
the stability date indicated on the IEC website under "http://webstore.iec.ch" in the data
related to the specific publication. At this date, the publication will be
• reconfirmed,
• withdrawn,
• replaced by a revised edition, or
• amended.
IMPORTANT – The 'colour inside' logo on the cover page of this publication indicates
that it contains colours which are considered to be useful for the correct
understanding of its contents. Users should therefore print this document using a
colour printer.
– 6 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
STANDARDIZED PRODUCT ONTOLOGY REGISTER
AND TRANSFER BY SPREADSHEETS –

Part 5: Interface for activity description

1 Scope
This part of IEC 62656 specifies a method for representing activities and relations among the
activities by a tabular ontology representation, called “parcellized activity model” or PAM for
short, which is a specialized use of a generic tabular ontology data model, known as the
parcellized ontology model (POM) defined in Part 1 of the IEC 62656 series. The activities
that can be described by this document include part or whole of an enterprise, an organization
or a collection of services, a set of events or processes which interact with each other by
exchanging physical or non-physical entities. This part of IEC 62656 also defines a method for
uniquely identifying activities, or their homologues happenings in a certain sequence. In
addition, this document identifies flows of information, objects or materials exchanged among
activities, where each of the activities is represented by a class and each flow by a relation.
Consequently, this document enables characterization, classification, and identification of a
set of activities as part of a normalized ontology. And this enables registering of a pattern of
activities as a set of metadata and uploading it onto the IEC 61360 Common Data Dictionary
(CDD), maintained as an online database of the electrotechnical concepts.
Additionally, this part of IEC 62656 provides a method to integrate ontologies of products and
activities including services, in a single model. This means a product can be analyzed in its
operational context for service. Such an integrated view will help people of different technical
backgrounds to see and share knowledge about the extent of an enterprise that requires the
products and services as indispensable resources. Such a data representation will also help
analyse the key functionalities of an enterprise and its available resources, with clear
definitions, limitations and interactions among them, when people are required to respond or
react to a new external condition or situation in a short time frame, in particular, at an
emergency or natural hazard.
Meanwhile, this part of IEC62656 does not intend to provide a detailed algorithmic description
of a flow of information, timing chart of processes, or sequential ordering of events that will be
necessary in a software design or programming phase of an information system that handles
activities or events. These detailed specifications of the algorithms and associated
construction of the data structures are left to the realm of software engineering methodology
and tools where there are so many schools and styles already, such as UML (Unified
Modelling Language), BPMN, SysML, DFD, IDEF, and other CASE (Computer Aided Software
Engineering) tools.
This International Standard neither intends to standardize nor introduce a new method of
graphic description for activities or processes. Ideally, an ontology of activities modelled by
this International Standard must be expressible by a number of existing graphical presentation
tools and process description languages for activities.
Nevertheless, some graphical presentations in the style of such tools or languages are helpful
for making the people understand the content of the PAM, and therefore, they are used in this
International Standard. In most of the cases, IDEF-0 is preferred for the purpose, because it
describes both activities and flows of things among the activities, but any other choices of
tools or languages can be made, wherever they are appropriate and relevant.

IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017 – 7 –
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their
content constitutes requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition
cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including
any amendments) applies.
IEC 61360-2:2012, Standard data element types with associated classification scheme for
electric components - Part 2: EXPRESS dictionary schema
IEC 61360-4, Standard data element types with associated classification scheme for electric
components – Part 4: IEC reference collection of standard data element types and component
classes (available at http://cdd.iec.ch/)
IEC 62656-1, Standardized product ontology register and transfer by spreadsheets – Part 1:
Logical structure for data parcels
IEC 62264-3:2007, Enterprise control system integration – Part 3: Activity models of
manufacturing operations management
ISO 13584-24, Industrial automation systems and integration – Parts library – Part 24: Logical
resource: Logical model of supplier library
ISO 13584-42:2010, Industrial automation systems and integration – Parts library – Part 42:
Description methodology: Methodology for structuring part families
3 Terms, definitions and abbreviations
3.1 Terms and definitions
For the purpose of this document, the terms and definitions given in ISO 13584-24 and
IEC 62656-1, as well as the following apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following
addresses:
• IEC Electropedia: available at http://www.electropedia.org/
• ISO Online browsing platform: available at http://www.iso.org/obp
3.1.1
activity
organizational, logical or conceptual unit for performing a set of specific actions or
functionalities
Note 1 to entry: An activity can be just for performing one action or functionality, and in an extreme case, for zero
action or functionality, meaning the activity is just an endpoint for terminating activities.
Note 2 to entry: An activity is not necessarily a process in time sequence in the PAM. Two or more activities may
concurrently work and interact with each other.
3.1.2
arrow
mapping from one category of things to another, yielding an information flow, a movement of
physical items, a change of states from one state to another, or a directional correspondence
from one collection of things to another, which is embodied as a functional relation
Note 1 to entry: Arrow as an information construct in this part of IEC 62656 embodies an mathematical entity
named “arrow” originating in the category theory of mathematics, which is synonymous with function, but maps
elements of one collection specified as “domain” to another collection specified as ”codomain”, with a strong sense
of direction.
– 8 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
Note 2 to entry: Arrows can also be used in a formula, such as in FX: × X ×× X → X where an
12 nn+1
arrow exists as the mapping F from an n-ary set XX× ×× X to X .
12 n n+1
3.1.3
arrow overloading
specialization of an arrow by narrowing or detailing either one of or both of the domain and
codomain of the arrow, being considered as a function
Note 1 to entry: Overloading of an arrow typically takes place on the frame boundary of a diagram in a lower node
of an activity.
3.1.4
aspect
way things appear, are looked at or expressed as an association among properties, classes,
or ontological elements in general, by the use of a relation
Note 1 to entry: A property may belong to one or several aspects.
3.1.5
branching point
forking point
point from which an arrow forks out into two or more arrows
3.1.6
connection point
point at which arrows or lines fork out, or at which several arrows or lines meet each other
Note 1 to entry: Both branching point and junction points are included in the connection points.
3.1.7
IDEF0
Integration Definition for Function Modelling
graphical language to model decisions, actions, and activities of an organization or system,
defined in the IDEF series of data modelling methods
Note 1 to entry: IDEF0 was once adopted as Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 183 by ANSI
(American National Standards Institute). However, it was withdrawn from FIPS in 2012, for it is no longer
necessary to designate only one method among many as the graphical language for modelling activities.
Note 2 to entry: This note applies to the French language only.
3.1.8
ontology
shared and formal modelling of knowledge about a domain
3.1.9
parcellized ontology model
POM
formal specification of being of things as a concept, including state of things and configuration
of things, by their properties and relations, formed in a set of relational tables each of which
represents a category of the ontological entities
Note 1 to entry: Parcellized ontology model is formally specified in IEC 62656-1.
Note 2 to entry: Examples of the categories of the ontological entities are class, property, relation, datatype, unit
of measurement, etc., which are essential constructs for the description of being.
Note 3 to entry: This note applies to the French language only.

IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017 – 9 –
3.1.10
parcellized activity model
PAM
specialized use of the parcellized ontology model defined in IEC 62656-1 for representing an
activity as part of an ontology
Note 1 to entry: This note applies to the French language only.
3.1.11
service
activity performed or being performed for the purpose of someone or something
Note 1 to entry: Usually an activity is performed else than for oneself or for itself.
3.1.12
subactivity
subcomponent of an activity
Note 1 to entry: One activity can be broken down into several subactivities. They can be a set of diachronical
divisions of an activity, as well as a set of synchronical divisions of an activity. For example, a collaborative work
done by different task forces of an enterprise.
3.1.13
transcendent arrow
arrow that enters into an activity and interacts with some or all of its subactivities
Note 1 to entry: A transcendent arrow may be forking into multiple arrows or joining another in a lower node frame.
3.2 Abbreviations
For the purposes of this document, the following abbreviations apply.
BPML Business Process Modelling Language
BPEL Business Process Execution Language
BPMN Business Process Modelling Notation
CDD Common Data Dictionary
DFD Data Flow Diagram
KPI Key Performance Indicator
POM Parcellized Ontology Model
SysML Systems Modelling Language
UML Unified Modelling Language
4 Overview
4.1 Activity described as an ontology
According to an acknowledged web resource, ontology is an explicit and formal specification
of conceptualization in a domain. If ontology is such, then an activity should be definitely a
part of the ontology. For an activity usually has an objective, ways and means to achieve the
objective, person or organization to be engaged, time, financial constraints and requirements
to be observed. In addition, an activity has a relationship to other activities, having them as
prior or posterior activities with which it may exchange information, goods or material. Such
an activity may have child or subactivities that assume part of the role or objectives of the
main activity. Moreover, some patterns of activities are repeatedly performed, so they can be
considered as a model and its instances. Furthermore, an activity is often a collaborative
process conducted in plural languages by different peoples of different countries on different
continents, with a plethora of cultural backgrounds and traditions. In consequence, there are
ample needs and necessities to share understanding about activities in an internationally

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normalized manner with their identification, canonical properties and concepts being
expressed in a machine sensible way.
The parcellized activity model (PAM) is a specialized use of the parcellized ontology model
(POM), defined in IEC 62656-1, for the purpose of modelling an activity or a set of activities
and possible interactions among them, with the data structure provided by the latter standard.
In the PAM, activities are expressed by classes whilst the flows of information, goods and
materials among activities are expressed by functional relations, with which not just
information flow but also the flow of products, materials and personnel can be included into
the scope of the model. This contrasts clearly with some other activity models that allow only
the information to be exchanged among the activities. However, the PAM is not intended as a
language for graphical presentation of the activities; for such a purpose there are already
BPML, BPEL, BPNM, IEDF0 and DFD, etc. Neither, the model is intended as a means to write
a flow chart or algorithmic diagram for designing a specific software application. Rather it is
designed to share a common understanding about the characteristics of activities and the
relations among them as a set of metadata, in other words, classes and properties of an
ontology expressible in a standard format of ontology, which allows text based queries. Yet
the metadata are also expected to be in a way translatable and graphically reproducible in at
least one of the graphical presentation languages of activities, or in an appropriate
combination of them. Here, the language we selected for primary translation is IDEF0. But the
PAM is not a data model exclusive to the language. Rather, it is designed as a means to
coordinate ontologies of products, services and activities together. Thus it is a prerequisite
that the description by the PAM must be well coordinated with the ontologies of products and
materials that have been stored and maintained in the common metadata registry of IEC, i.e.,
the IEC 61360-4 DB, or so called “IEC CDD” or sometimes more simply, “CDD”(Common Data
Dictionary), for which the Parcel series of standards provides input and output interfaces and
its model extension.
4.2 Use cases and key technical concepts
The principal applications of this document might be in the field of engineering. However,
importance of guiding or assisting people in visiting places by handy electrotechnic means is
not limited to the engineering, but well recognized for a wide range of industrial activities,
including process automation, agriculture, fishery, hazard prevention, jurisdiction, defence,
transportation, medicine, nursery and tourism. Whilst a pattern of specialized engineering
activities is comprehensible only within a limited number of experts of the domain, a holiday
visit to an art museum can be understood by much a larger audience or readers. Thus, for
illustration purpose, an activity to “see fine arts at museum” is picked up for the first example
in 4.3 as an exemplary use case, because most of the readers must have visited some
museum more than once to see fine arts in their lifetime. And we expect they must have had a
similar experience, seeing different genres of arts at different locations where local people
speak different languages. En suite, we deliver a use case that lies in the midst of the process
automation, i.e., an ontological description of a segment of the activities of enterprise-control
system integration, described in IEC 62264-3, which latter is often touted as a cornerstone of
the smart manufacturing.
Figure 1 illustrates how a touristic activity to see fine arts at a museum can be modelled as an
ontology. Under a generic activity named “See fine arts at museum”, there are two types of
hierarchy; one is a “specialization tree” or so called “is-a” tree that has a small open triangle
at the head of the relation line in the diagram, another is a “composition tree” or “part-of” tree
that shows how an activity can be decomposed into sub-parts, which is represented by a
relation line with a black diamond at the head. Of course, properties that are held by a generic
activity shall be inherited into specialized activities in the case of specialization hierarchy. In
the given case, the activity to “see fine arts at museum” may have, for example, “language(s)
for arts description”, “admission fee”, “open hours”, and “genres of arts” and they are
uniformly inherited into specialized activities, such as an activity to “see fine arts at American
museum”, to “see fine arts at French museum”, to “see fine arts at Japanese museum”, and to
“see fine arts at Spanish museum” in the same way. Ultimately at all leaf nodes, be it an
activity to see arts at a globally renowned big French museums like Musée du Louvre or
Musée d'Orsay, or to see some select arts at a Japanese city local museum of a reasonable
scale, like the ones at Kagoshima city museum of arts, the properties are inherited from the

IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017 – 11 –
generic activity to “see fine arts at Museum” in the same manner. Only the parametric values
of them are different. In addition to those inherited properties, there shall be some native
properties that distinguish one activity from another. In exception of those properties, basic
components of the activities of the generic activity, depicted as yellow boxes in Figure 1, are
the same as those specialized activities at leaf nodes; for basically at every museum, you
have to get a ticket or pass, then get admitted into an exhibition, visit some art halls in series,
then you may exit from the exhibition at one of the art halls. Note that an arrow means people
spread among activity boxes (marked in yellow) move from one activity at the source of an
arrow to another at the destination of the arrow, rather than a description of a sequence of
actions for one person.
Figure 2 shows a typical example of a set of standardized industrial activities extracted from
IEC 62264-3 (Figure 14 in the original) that is expressed by means of DFD. Figure 3 is a
figure in IDEF0 which corresponds to Figure 2, and in line with the PAM specification
according to IEC 62656-5. According to IEC 62264-3, all production activities in
manufacturing can be patterned after the model depicted in Figure 2, and each specialized
manufacturing should be adequately explained by a specialization of the diagram. Here, the
readers should not misconstrue the objective of this use case; it is not intended to claim that
the content of IEC 62264-3 is replaceable by a functionality of the PAM. Rather it is simply to
state that significant part of the semantic content of IEC 62264-3 can be translated and
reproduced in a form of ontology data and can be stored and maintained in IEC CDD by
means of the PAM, which enables interaction and cross references with the related product
definitions stored in the CDD. Incidentally, the readers are reminded that the internal
communication flows, such as operational commands, depicted in Figure 2 between the
current level (level 3) of enterprise-control and the level 1 and level 2 functions according to
the respective definitions in IEC 62264-3 are removed from Figure 3 because they shall be
elaborated when the “Production execution management” indexed as A5 in Figure 3 is
unfolded into subactivities in the PAM, as a base node for unfolding. Since the PAM itself is
not a graphic presentation language for activities, the figures and diagrams are the work
created by tools and applications that interpret the ontology data according to IEC 62656-5.
Nevertheless, In Annex C, a set of sample data according to IEC 62656-5 are included
(Figure C.1 through Figure C.), which semantically correspond to Figure 3. In addition, some
actual examples of auto-generated figures from the PAM are shown in Annex C (Figure C.4
and Figure C.5).
IEC
Figure 1 – See fine arts at Museum

– 12 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017

IEC
Figure 2 – Production operations management (extracted from IEC 62264-3)

– 13 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
IEC
Figure 3 – Production operations management modelled in PAM and depicted as IDEF-0 diagram

– 14 – IEC 62656-5:2017 © IEC 2017
4.3 Relation among properties of different activities
Since an activity is modelled as a class and each class has properties, there may be several
types of relations, among a set of activities, a set of properties, or a set of activities and
properties. Some of those relations have a direction from a source to a destination, where
both the source and the destination may comprise a collection of activities, whilst some others
have no direction among such entities constrained by the relation. Note that the IDEF0
depicts flows of thing among activities, and does not specify further constraints among
properties of both the source and the destination, thus it deploys a directed relation from a set
of activities to another. This type of relation is realized by a functional relation whilst the non-
directional one is by a predicative relation, both of which are defined in IEC 62656-1. There
are cases, however, where the constraints among the properties of the source and destination
need to be further specified beyond the capability corresponding to IDEF0. The method to
superimpose this detailed relation on another relation expressing a flow is described in 5.13.
4.4 International Concept Identifier (ICID)
The International concept identifier or ICID is defined in IEC 62656-1 as a specialization of
the International Registration Data Identifier (IRDI) defined in ISO/IEC 11179-6, where the
difference is only in the choice of separator characters between the significant parts of the
identifier sequence, i.e., the Registr
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