Manufacturing Message Specification
AbbreviationMSS
StatusPublished
Year started1990 (age 36)
First published1990 (age 36)
Version2
Version dateAugust 2003 (age 23)
OrganizationInternational Organization for Standardization
SeriesISO 9506
EditorsISO/TC 184/SC 5
AuthorsISO/TC 184/SC 5 (Interoperability, integration, and architectures for enterprise systems and automation applications)
DomainAutomation systems and integration
Licensesingle-user licence
Websitewww.iso.org/standard/37079.html

Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) is an international standard (ISO 9506) dealing with messaging systems for transferring real time process data and supervisory control information between networked devices or computer applications. The standard is developed and maintained by the ISO Technical Committee 184 (TC184). MMS defines the following

  • A set of standard objects which must exist in every device, on which operations like read, write, event signaling etc. can be executed. Virtual manufacturing device (VMD) is the main object and all other objects like variables, domains, journals, files etc. comes under VMD.
  • A set of standard messages exchanged between a client and a server stations for the purpose of monitoring or controlling these objects.
  • A set of encoding rules for mapping these messages to bits and bytes when transmitted.

MMS original communication stack

MMS was standardized in 1990 under two separate standards as

  1. ISO/IEC 9506-1 (2003): Industrial Automation systems - Manufacturing Message Specification - Part 1: Service Definition
  2. ISO/IEC 9506-2 (2003): Industrial Automation systems - Manufacturing Message Specification - Part 2: Protocol Specification

This version of MMS used seven layers of OSI network protocols as its communication stack:

ApplicationApplication Common Service Element (ACSE) - ISO 8649/8650
PresentationConnection Oriented Presentation - ISO 8822/8823 Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN) - ISO 8824/8825
SessionConnection Oriented Session - ISO 8326/8327
TransportConnection Oriented Transport - ISO 8072/8073
NetworkConnectionless network - ISO 8348
LinkMAC - ISO 8802-3 [Ethernet] MAC - ISO 8802-4 [Token Ring]
PhysicalEthernet Token Ring

MMS stack over TCP/IP

Because the Open Systems Interconnection protocols are challenging to implement, the original MMS stack never became popular. In 1999, Boeing created a new version of MMS using Internet protocols instead of the bottom four layers of the original stack plus RFC 1006 ("ISO Transport over TCP") in the transport layer. The top three layers use the same OSI protocols as before.

In terms of the seven-layer OSI model, the new MMS stack looks like this:

ApplicationApplication Common Service Element (ACSE) - ISO 8649/8650
PresentationConnection Oriented Presentation - ISO 8822/8823 Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN) - ISO 8824/8825
SessionConnection Oriented Session - ISO 8326/8327
TransportISO transport over TCP - RFC 1006 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) - RFC 793
Network

Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) - Internet Protocol (IP) -

Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) -

LinkMAC - ISO 8802-3 [Ethernet]
PhysicalEthernet

With the new stack, MMS has become a globally accepted standard.[citation needed]