Testing High-Reliability Software for Continuous Casting Steel Plants - Experiences and Lessons Learned from Siemens VAI

Abstract

As the world's leading supplier of metallurgical plants, Siemens VAI provides integrated and universally applicable continuous casting systems for the steel industry. The complexity of the process of casting liquid steel is supported by software products that enable high-quality steel casts and efficient plant performance. Over the last recent years Siemens VAI developed a flexible software product line. The system has been classified as highly reliable, which implies rigorous and systematic testing throughout all phases of the development lifecycle. In this paper we investigate how testing is embedded in the development lifecycle and how various testing methods are applied to ensure high software reliability. The lessons learned distilled from over five years of project experience discuss practices that contributed to the current testing approach.

Automated testing of industrial automation software: practical receipts and lessons learned

“…A prominent industry example is provided in the case study by Larndorfer et al [21] on software testing for continuous casting steel plants. The study shows the rigorous and systematic testing approaches embedded in the development lifecycle and investigates the value of various testing techniques for ensuring high reliability in industrial software systems.…”