Grossenbacker Electronik AG, a sizable 110-year-old privately-held Swiss concern whose heritage lies with industrial automation, has branched off into computer-integrated manufacturing with its first software engineering tool, a package called PACE, that it believes represents a new generation in graphical modelling. The software is targeted at three market segments, the hottest of which is workflow management. Designed in conjunction with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, PACE is based on high-level Petri-Nets, combined with object-oriented data modelling in SmallTalk, and features an interactive graphical user interface based on multiple windows and context-sensitive menus. On the workflow side, the company says PACE contains the hooks to depict organisational structures (groups, departments, divisions) graphically through icons; simultaneously to model information (orders, mail, production flow) flowing through those structures; simulate and statistically analyse workload, efficiency and profitability; interface with office automation functions to produce documents, print, send electronic mail, activate batch processes, or do SQL functions to a database; generate the code for the PACE-defined and modelled applications; and implement the workflow on the target system. Strategic product manager Alfred Escher says PACE goes beyond anything currently available, including London’s StaffWare, Dublin’s Workhorse and the AT&T Rhapsody systems. PACE will work on both Unix and MS-DOS machines, he says, as well as in networked environments. Grossenbacher envisions the software used on the factory floor for industrial automation programming, in operations planning and at the administrative and organisational level as an expert system tool. PACE has been in 30 pilot sites, attracted the attention of hard-to-please Deutsche Bundespost and is just now being released. Grossenbacher is looking to build a worldwide multi channel distribution network for PACE, and will be in the US this week scouting out OEM customers, distributors and large accounts at Unix Expo. It believes some parts are still missing from its workflow functionality, such as a specific set of user interface functions and standard hooks to major office automation packages. To fill in the gap, it will be looking to partner with software houses and value-added resellers who will take it into vertical markets. Grossenbacher could redistribute such verticalised software more widely. Demonstration software is available for a fee. The package will list for 15,000 Swiss francs or around $10,000. In the next iteration, the company intends making the software real-time. Currently PACE contains an integrated graphical editor, interactive simulator and visual animator. It is equipped with hierarchical nets, reuseable subnet libraries and interactive syntax consistency checks.
