IN SEARCH OF THE CHESHIRE-CAT - THE INVISIBLE AUTOMATION SYSTEM PARADOX - PRESENTED AT THE WORLD BATCH FORUM

In a paper at the first World Batch Forum, entitled The Amazing Invisi ble Batch Automation System, we put forth the premise that process con trol systems should be transparent to their users. That is, the contro l system should create the illusion that the user is interacting direc tly with the process, rather than with the control system itself. At t he same time, the system's job is to act as the brains of an otherwise dumb process, thus making that process appear to be ''intelligent''. This paper discusses the architectural implications of the ''invisible system'' concept in more detail. In particular, we introduce the seem ingly paradoxical concept that the desired invisibility of the automat ion system is best achieved by implementing an explicit model of the s ystem itself, as well as one of the process under control. We focus pa rticularly on the effective use of object models and on crucial decisi ons regarding the proper partitioning of responsibility in the system. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.