Towards verified continuous integration in the engineering of automated production systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (10) ◽  
pp. 784-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Mund ◽  
Safa Bougouffa ◽  
Iman Badr ◽  
Birgit Vogel-Heuser
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Software Engineering ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Individual Quality ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Automated Production ◽  
Continuous Integration ◽  
Verification Techniques

Abstract Continuous integration (CI) is widely used in software engineering. The observed benefits include reduced efforts for system integration, which is particularly appealing for engineering automated production systems (aPS) due to the different disciplines involved. Yet, while many individual quality assurance means for aPS have been proposed, their adequacy for and systematic use in CI remains unclear. In this article, the authors provide two key contributions: First, a quality model for a model-based engineering approach specifically developed for aPS. Based thereon, a discussion of the suitable verification techniques for aPS and their systematic integration in a CI process are given. As a result, the paper provide a blueprint to be further studied in practice, and a research agenda for quality assurance of aPS.

scholarly journals Success Factors for the Design of Field-level Control Code in Machine and Plant Manufacturing - an Industrial Survey -

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgit Vogel-Heuser ◽  
Juliane Fischer ◽  
Eva-Maria Neumann ◽  
Matthias Kreiner
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Development Effort ◽  
Manufacturing Companies ◽  
Level Control ◽  
Control Software ◽  
Automated Production ◽  
Field Level ◽  
Control Code

Abstract The amount of software in automated production systems, including its development effort, is continuously increasing to currently up to 35-50% of the development personnel. Consequently, success factors for achieving modularity and complexity management of control software are of high economic interest. Scientific solutions are manifold but often not implemented in industry. This paper introduces the study QoaPS SWE (Quality of automated Production Systems’ Software Engineering) providing insights into 61 machine and plant manufacturing companies to give quantitative and qualitative results to five essential research questions on success factors in the design of field-level control code. Compared to preceding surveys, QoaPS SWE achieves statistically significant results for software maturity (MMOD+), complexity, and model-based software engineering and provides detailed insights into causes and consequences for single criteria, thus clearly identifying obstacles to be addressed in future research and with industrial countermeasures. Especially staff qualification and organizational issues are identified as obstacles to applying the object-oriented programming paradigm for control software in machine and plant manufacturing. Validity is ensured by analyzing the statistical significance of the results in addition to comparisons with earlier surveys and interviews as well as the comparison with already existing and accepted maturity levels. The provided qualitative and quantitative results will allow the benchmarking of companies’ maturity and the derivation of concrete recommendations for companies depending on their MMOD+ value and the evaluated characteristics.

An agent-based approach for dependable planning of production sequences in automated production systems

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Rehberger ◽  
Lucas Spreiter ◽  
Birgit Vogel-Heuser
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Production Systems ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Design Parameters ◽  
Product Management ◽  
Plant Resources ◽  
Time Duration ◽  
Automated Production ◽  
Agent Oriented Software Engineering

AbstractOne approach to achieve flexibility and dependability for the control of automated production systems (aPS) is agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE). In this paper, the modular decoupling of the supervisory control, most significantly the planning of production sequences and transfer routes, from the distributed real-time control of the plant resources is demonstrated by the use of agents. The resulting product management agent (PMA) represents the technical process of the manufactured product and conducts a discrete reasoning algorithm to derive appropriate production plans by the use of graph-search and also by interaction with the underlying resource agents (RA). It is shown, that for a given production system, dependable solutions are automatically generated in regard to a given product recipe. Further it is deduced, that the solutions are calculated and evaluated by the PMA within a deterministic time duration. This is argued on the fact, that the computation complexity does not exceed polynomial time and is mostly predetermined by the design parameters of the plant. Thus, it gives a reasonable approach for the use in a real-time environment. Additionally, through separation of supervisory and field control, a modular software engineering is achieved, offering the advantage that the PMA and the resource agents can be reused, by solely adapting the knowledge bases and without the need for modifying the planning algorithms after a reconfiguration of the aPS.

scholarly journals Continuous Integration, In-Code Documentation, and Automation for Nuclear Quality Assurance Conformance

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Slaughter ◽  
Cody J. Permann ◽  
Jason M. Miller ◽  
Brian K. Alger ◽  
Stephen R. Novascone
Keyword(s):  
Quality Assurance ◽  
Continuous Integration

The Verbmobil prototype system – a software engineering perspective

1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS BUB ◽  
JOHANNES SCHWINN
Keyword(s):  
Software Engineering ◽  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
System Integration ◽  
Evolutionary Process ◽  
Prototype System ◽  
Functional Architecture ◽  
Seamless Integration ◽  
Extensible Software ◽  
Transfer Problems

Verbmobil represents a new generation of speech-to-speech translation systems in which spontaneously spoken language, speaker independence and adaptability as well as the combination of deep and shallow approaches to the analysis and transfer problems are the main features. The project brought together researchers from the fields of signal processing, computational linguistics and artificial intelligence. Verbmobil goes beyond the state-of-the-art in each of these areas, but its main achievement is the seamless integration of them. The first project phase (1993–1996) has been followed up by the second project phase (1997–2000), which aims at applying the results to further languages and at integrating innovative telecooperation techniques. Quite apart from the speech and language processing issues, the size and complexity of the project represent an extreme challenge on the areas of project management and software engineering:[bull ] 50 researchers from 29 organizations at different sites in different countries are involved in the software development process,[bull ] to reuse existing software, hardware, knowledge and experience, only a few technical restrictions could be given to the partners.In this article we describe the Verbmobil prototype system from a software-engineering perspective. We discuss:[bull ] the modularized functional architecture,[bull ] the flexible and extensible software architecture which reflects that functional architecture,[bull ] the evolutionary process of system integration,[bull ] the communication-based organizational structure of the project,[bull ] the evaluation of the system operational by the end of the first project phase.

scholarly journals Reducing the Costs of Automated Production Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 44-47
Author(s):  
Konstantin Novikov ◽  
Pavel Vranek ◽  
Jana Kleinova ◽  
Michal Šimon
Keyword(s):  
Production Systems ◽  
Automated Production
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