History of Mom Software Services

Since 1987 Cor Mom has been developing applications for the OpenVMS operating system. He started working in the OpenVMS environment at a leading Dutch investigation institute specialized in metal research. After that he started working for a software house specialized in process control systems and has performed several OpenVMS projects for several companies. In 1991 he founded Mom Software Services and continued performing projects for other companies on OpenVMS systems only.

History of projects

Mom Software Services has developed or participated in several projects for production automation systems, data aquisition systems, equipment control systems, communication control systems, database information systems and others. Here follows a brief list:

• Several projects have been performed for a company that manufactures sport shoes and clothes. For their European distribution center a shoe-sorter application, an automatic pallettizing application, a high-bay crane communication application and an inline printer application have been developped. All applications run in an 24*7 environment.

• A project has been performed for the Dutch police to make automatic and remote system management possible.

• Several projects have been performed for a production line of photo film and photo paper. The production of photo film and photo paper is a complicated process which partly takes place in the dark. The process control systems are continuously updated because of new development activities, the production of new products, the replacement of equipment, bug fixes, etc. The production process is non-stop (7*24) and only stops a few times a year for preventive maintenance including software updates.

• New functionality has been added to the software systems that perform the planning process for the Netherlands Railways.

• Several modifications were made at the Train Control Systems (TCS) of the Netherlands Railways. The TCS consists of an Overall Control System (OCS) which is connected to a Switch and Signal Control System (SSCS), a Train Follow System (TFS) and a Delay Control System (DCS). The SSCS controls all the switches and signals along the railway, the TFS follows a train through a certain area and the DCS informs the train passengers when a train has been delayed. All mentioned systems are running 24*365, some of them with a hot-standby slave system to take over as soon as possible.

• For a container transshipment company in the port of Rotterdam several activities have been performed for their automated container transfer terminal. This state of the art container terminal consists of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) and Automated Stacking Cranes (ASC), both able to transfer a container from location A to location B fully automatically. Mom Software Services has designed and developed an ASC clone to be used for simulation purposes and for testing the interfacing software systems. Mom Software Services also performed a lot of modifications at the ASC control software (which instructs the ASC), to the AGV control software (which instructs the AGV) and to the Order Control System (which instructs all the required equipment control systems). All mentioned systems are running 24*365 in an OpenVMS VAX and OpenVMS Alpha cluster environment.

• For a company that specializes in the provision of Meteorological Information Products and any meteorological systems for use in demanding application areas in the military, civil aviation and the general meteorological marketplace, Mom Software Services has desiged and implemented a Message Switching System (MSS). The job of this MSS is to receive meteorological messages, store them in an Oracle database and distribute the selected messages to several military weather stations. Messages are transferred by RS232 (using a DECserver) or by X25 (using PSI). The MSS has been configured as a double system, because no messages may get lost.

• For a company in Belfast (Northern Ireland) that owns a chain of superstores the distribution centre has been automated. All incoming products arrive on pallets. After scanning the barcode of a product the order to which it belongs will automatically be selected. All products are placed manually on a conveyor system at four available infeed stations (each infeed station can handle different orders and products simultaneously). All products are then diverted to the right chute. A chute collects all products for the same store. The Conveyor Control System performs the following functions: receive order and product information from a host system and load this data into the internal order tables, find product and order data when products are scanned at the infeed stations, provide the PLC with information so the products can be diverted to the right chute, collect several production figures, upload the order results to the host system and control several menu-driven terminals. Maintenance takes place on a regular basis until today. The Conveyor Control System has been configured double in a VMScluster environment.

• For a company in Corby (Great Britain) an order dispatch system has been designed, implemented, tested and installed on site. Orders are downloaded into the Conveyor Control System (CCS) from a IBM 3090 computer. On start of an order a picking tote will be inserted into the conveyor system. This tote visits all the necessarily picking area's to fullfil the order. When all products have been picked, the tote visits the packing area. The control of the conveyor system and all picking area's is performed by nine Siemens S5 PLC's. The communication with the PLC's and the control of about 40 menu-driven terminals is performed by the CCS running on a master/slave-configured MicroVAX 3100.

• For a Dutch research laboratory a Fermentation Control System (FCS) has been developed to control a recipe-driven biochemical fermentation process. The FCS allows researchers to define and examine independend experiments. The FCS has a recipe management, controls the fermentation process, has alarming functions including paging the researcher concerned, archives experiments and data and reports results. For the control of the fermentation process, the FCS communicates with several local control units and with other laboratory equipment.

• Participated in the implementation of a Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS) for a Dutch investigation institute. The FMS consists of modules for automatically control fraise, drilling machines and turning lathes for the manufacturing of all kinds of metal products. Manufacturing orders are entered into the FMS and planned for execution. All order and order-related data is stored in a RdB database.

• Several small activities such as writing a VMS course for starters, system management for a couple of small companies, development of a library of inter-process communicating routines, etc.