In data modelling, product information has most often been handled separately
from process information. The integration of product and process models in a
unified data model could provide the means by which information could be shared
across an enterprise throughout the system lifecycle from design through to
production. Recently attempts have been made to integrate these two separate
views of systems through identifying common data models. This paper relates
description-driven systems to multi-layer architectures and reveals where
existing design patterns facilitate the integration of product and process
models and where patterns are missing or where existing patterns require
enrichment for this integration. It reports on the construction of a so-called
description-driven system which integrates Product Data Management (PDM) and
Workflow Management (WfM) data models through a common meta-model.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures. Presented at the 3rd Enterprise Distributed
Object Computing EDOC'99 conference. Mannheim, Germany. September 199