I’m wonderig if this is really feasible or not. I’m interfacing to a machine where I get basic order information such as OrderName, Quantity, etc via tcpip. These orders are planned at the machine GUI, and have nothing to do with FPMI. The operators plan similar orders in FPMI though, and I run them FIFO style.
I would prefer to be able to use the names coming from the machine, but I can’t be sure they will use the same names everywhere. For instance, they may call and order “MAIN_3” at the machine, but “Main 3” at FPMI. Knowing that Python is a pretty good tool for handling strings, I thought I should be able to somehow match orders coming from the machine with what that have planned. So, “MAIN_3”, “main 3”, and “MAIN 03” should all be interpreted as the same order, but not “Main 30”. I found some cool soundex algorithms on the net, but wasn’t sure if that is the right way.
Have you thought about creating a naming convention and have the machine GUI and FPMI create the Order Name based on the naming convention? I have given some thought to implementing a work order system in my FPMI application. I wouldn’t expect our operators to be able to remember a naming convention, so I thought of a system of using drop down lists to implement a naming convention. So my naming convention might be Site\Device_Type\Device_ID. I would have 3 drop down lists (Site, Type, ID) and the operator would select an item from each of the lists and FPMI would create the proper name based on the selections.
The problem is that I don’t have control over what they enter in the other machine, so I can’t enforce a naming convention. If you or I were entering the orders, we could probably remember to use something like “MAIN_03” consistently, but that isn’t going to happen when some of the operators don’t even speak Engish. On my end, I let them decide what the names should be (I don’t use the name for anything but display purposes, and key off the ndx), but the customer can be expected to enter at least similar names throughout both systems.
So the FactoryPMI data is entered before the machine data, right? Then once the machine entry is complete, you need to match it to an FactoryPMI record? I think you are going to have to just write a script that tries to match the strings. One way to make this easier would be to enforce strict naming conventions on the FactoryPMI side.
Also, if there is no match, can the person on the FactoryPMI side come back and select from the list of names you got from the machine? If so, this may be the way to go. You could store all the data you need and have someone come in later and match it to the right name ie. ‘MAIN_03’.