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This report presents and describes a means of identifying where new or revised manufacturing standards may be required. It establishes a Reference Model for Shop Floor Production, which is then used as the basis for developing a methodology for the identification and extraction of areas for standards. The assumptions used to develop the Reference Model are:

• the field of interest is the manufacture of discrete parts and in particular the production (physical realisation) of these parts,
• the Reference Model needs to be open-ended so that it can be revised to incorporate new technologies, and
• the Reference Model needs to be generic in nature so that it can be applied to a wide range of applications and is not directed to a particular organisational structure of manufacturing.

It is emphasised that the Reference Model:

• provides a conceptual framework for understanding discrete parts manufacturing and
• can be used to identify areas of standards necessary to integrate manufacturing systems.

The Reference Model does not however provide a methodology for designing, implementing, operating and maintaining any existing or future manufacturing automation system. There may be a need to develop other Reference Models which can be used for those purposes, perhaps based on the work described in this report. The development of such models is beyond the scope of this technical report.