Industrial processing and manufacturing systems

Claim 1

An installation which comprises a plurality of computer controlled processing facilities linked to a computerised control system and which is operable automatically for carrying out industrial processing jobs each involving the performance, in sequence, of one or more items of work from each of a plurality of different kinds of activity, the control system being programmed with software in the form of a plurality of function performing modules able to communicate one with another on a service-provider and client basis via a common communication facility, and said modules including:- a plurality of server modules for providing respective ones of a series of elemental services including low-level access to and control of computer file storage, a plurality of controller modules for controlling respective ones of said facilities to perform said items of work, a plurality of activity manager modules each of which is responsible for controlling one or more controller modules associated with the same activity, and a job-route sequencing module which is operable for using a file access server module to obtain from a stored job file information concerning jobs to be carried out and the items of work associated with each such job, the job-route sequencing module being further operable for distributing said items of work in the sequence in which they are to be carried out to the appropriate ones of said activity manager modules and for maintaining track of the progress of each job by receiving `from the activity manager modules indications that particular items of work previously passed to them have been completed, each activity manager module being further operable for receiving the items of work distributed to it by the job-route sequencing module, for maintaining a queue of such items, for passing the items in sequence to the controller module or an appropriate one of the controller modules for which it is responsible, and for passing back to the job-route sequencing module an indication of completion of each item of work, and each controller module being operable for requesting a new item of work from its associated activity manager module, for receiving any such work item passed to it as a result of said request and for then controlling the associated facility to carry out that item of work.