PLAnetary Information Database (PLAID)

PLAID is a direct response to the common plight of small companies with operations that span both hardware design and production; how do they fulfill their need for basic PLM and ERP functionality without the crushing cost and overhead of implementing two separate enterprise software packages.

PLAID is based on lessons learned during a decade of Mars rover hardware development and delivery at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and half a decade of satellite development and operation at Planetary Resources, Inc. PLAID is the software I wished JPL had and that Planetary Resources allowed to happen.

PLAID is a database and front end designed to capture, archive and present data related to the design, production and testing of hardware – in broad terms, it is used to answer:

1. How do I make X?
   • Collect and relate all the information that describes the design of a product
2. Is X okay / ready to use?
   • Collect and relate all the information that describes the pedigree of a specific instance of a product

In particular, PLAID is intended to:

1. Allow every in the company to access and contribute to:
   • Design Information
   • Product Information
   • Status of Designs and Products
2. Create a controlled, searchable repository for company infrastructure and standards
3. Standardize data type terms and definitions
4. Encourage Ownership
5. Manage Design Numbers
6. Manage peer review of critical data
7. Revision control and freeze database records
8. Help everyone in the company answer critical questions during spacecraft development and delivery
   • What do I need to make?
   • What do I plan to make?
   • What did I make?
   • Does what I made match what I planned to make?
   • Does what I made do what it needs to do?

PLAID is structured around a very particular set of data types that are specifically defined to cover the full range of hardware development activities and all of the “what-if” situations I’ve ever encountered during my career. It is critical that anyone using PLAID, or developing hardware, have a clear and common understanding of the data types being managed. Those data types include:

|RECORD TYPE|RECORD ID FORMAT|RECORD DESCRIPTION / DEFINITION|
|-----------|----------------|------------------------------------------------|
|**Design**|1234567 (w/ revision)|A description of one or more related items in response to a particular set of requirements|
|**Part**|1234567-1, -2|One or more objects defined by a particular Design; variants are uniquely identified by a -#|
|**Revision**|A, B...|An update to a Design for the purpose of correction, improvement or to meet updated requirements|
|**Product, S/N**|1234567-1 S/N 001|A physical instance of a Part|
|**Product, LOT**|1234567-1 LOT 001|A group of interchangeable physical instances of a Part|
|**Build**|1234567-1 B001|A convenience; A batch of Products purchased, fabricated or built together|
|**Vendor Part**|(anything)|A catalog part offered for purchase by a third-party vendor, not per a internal company design.|
|**Vendor Product**|(anything)|A physical instance, or group of instances, of a Vendor Part|
|**Discrepancy**|(product_num)-##|Any deviation of a Product from its drawing or other design description (i.e. not built as designed)|
|**Anomaly**|A-123456|Any deviation of a Product from expected behavior or performance (i.e. built as designed but not designed correctly)|
|**ECO**|ECO-123456|Description of and justification for a change to a Design - an intermediate step towards a Revision
|**Procedure**|DOC-123456 (w/ revision)|Instructions for doing work|
|**As-Run**|DOC-123456-001|A numbered instance of a Procedure - the record of actually doing the work as instructed|
|**Specification**|PRI-12345|General Company standards and/or process description|
|**Task**|T-123456|A request for someone to do / make / fix / test / etc. something|

Sean Haggart, PLAID task manager and Senior Mechanical Engineer for Planetary Resources, Inc.

Provided to the open-source community by ConsenSys, June 2019. Chris Lewicki, former CEO, Planetary Resources, Inc. / Co-Founder ConsenSys Space

Quickstart

On OSX, ensure you have Homebrew installed: http://brew.sh/

Install Python3, PostgreSQL and RabbitMQ:

brew install python3
brew install postgresql
brew install rabbitmq

Then configure RabbitMQ:

sudo rabbitmq-server -detached
sudo rabbitmqctl add_user plaid_dev_rabbit complicated-password-here
sudo rabbitmqctl add_vhost plaid_dev_amqp
sudo rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p plaid_dev_amqp plaid_dev_rabbit ".*" ".*" ".*"

These commands will need to be run each time you've rebooted:

pg_ctl -D /usr/local/var/postgres start
sudo rabbitmq-server -detached
celery -A celery_worker.celery worker --loglevel=info

Once you have installed your DBMS, run the following to create your app's database tables and perform the initial migration:

python manage.py db init
python manage.py db migrate
python manage.py db upgrade
python magic_import.py
python manage.py server

Then run the following commands to bootstrap your environment and start the server:

git clone https://github.com/pri-web/pid.git
cd pid
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements/dev.txt
python manage.py server

You will see a pretty welcome screen.

If you want to use Flask commands instead, add the following to .bashrc or .bash_profile.

export FLASK_APP=/path/to/pid/autoapp.py
export FLASK_DEBUG=1

Then you can execute the same commands as above with:

flask db init
flask db migrate
flask db upgrade
flask run

Deployment

In your production environment, make sure the PLAID_ENV environment variable is set to "prod".

Follow the steps described in deployment/README.rst

Shell

To open the interactive shell, run

python manage.py shell

By default, you will have access to app, db, and the User model.

Running Tests

To run all tests, run

python manage.py test

Migrations

Whenever a database migration needs to be made. Run the following commands:

python manage.py db migrate

This will generate a new migration script. Then run:

python manage.py db upgrade

To apply the migration.

For a full migration command reference, run python manage.py db --help.