The Experience of Implementing Model-Driven Engineering Tools in the Process Control Domain

Abstract

Model-driven engineering (MDE) is a software-engineering paradigm that is being introduced into a growing number of domains. One of the most important success factors for a new MDE approach is the availability of the appropriate tool support for it. Although the literature discusses the development of support tools, only a few reports and analyses are available about the development of tool support for real-life modeling languages and MDE approaches. The goal of this paper is to fill this gap through an experience report about developing a tool-suite prototype for an MDE approach for the process control domain that is capable of supporting the development of real-life process control software. Before the work presented in this paper an initial prototype tool suite was already developed. However, it was not able to adequately support industry-scale projects. The paper starts with an analysis of the past development of this already-existing laboratory prototype and then moves on to a report about the development of the industrial prototype, which is influenced by the findings of the analysis. Then a comparison between the two prototypes is made and the lessons learned are described, which may be useful to practitioners who attempt to develop support tools for an MDE approach that are useful in practice. The most important lesson learned is that when developing tool support for complex modeling languages, the traditional development approach should not be easily rejected.

Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Optimal Configuration of Business Process Model Families

“…In a broader sense, the study contributes to the body of research knowledge in the fields of business process management [24,31] and automated software engineering [13]. While the proposed research can be connected with the field of requirement engineering [35], the questions and method adopted generates results and findings that are more applicable for AHP practitioners to aid practical use of different kinds of preferences in different scenarios.…”

DATAM: A model‐based tool for dependability analysis

“…Godena et al 2 summed up some lesson‐learned about developing support tools for an MDE approach. The most important rule is that the traditional development approach should not be easily rejected, and our tool is also based on traditional object‐oriented methods.…”

“…One of the most important success factors for a new MDE approach is the availability of the appropriate tool support 2 . The first major concern of the modeling tool is its correctness, which means the components of the tool should be consistent with the modeling language to provide an accurate model.…”

“…Typically, the MDE approach relies on three main factors, ie, modeling languages, model transformations, and support tools. The modeling languages for software and systems can be classified into general‐purpose modeling languages (GPMLs), which support modeling in a variety of domains and domain‐specific modeling languages (DSMLs), which are intended for modeling in one domain using the abstractions common to that domain 2 . Apparently, DSML is more concise and more effective.…”

“…One of the most important success factors for a new MDE approach is the availability of the appropriate tool support. 2 The first major concern of the modeling tool is its correctness, which means the components of the tool should be consistent with the modeling language to provide an accurate model. However, these processes are error-prone, because there is no clear standard indicating which elements in the DSML need to be represented by equivalents in the tool, and man-made errors are also inevitable in modeling, so that we present a method to extract key elements in AltaRica and convert them into components of the model, which makes DATAM reliable.…”