Towards model-based derivation of systems in the industrial automation domain

Abstract

Many systems in the industrial automation domain include information systems. They manage manufacturing processes and control numerous distributed hardware and software components. In current practice, the development and reuse of such systems is costly and time-consuming, due to the variability of systems' topology and processes. Up to now, product line approaches for systematic modeling and management of variability have not been well established for such complex domains. In this paper, we present a model-based approach to support the derivation of systems in the target domain. The proposed architecture of the derivation infrastructure enables feature-, topology- and process configuration to be integrated into the multi-staged derivation process. We have developed a prototype to prove feasibility and improvement of derivation efficiency. We report the evaluation results that we collected through semi-structured interviews from domain stakeholders. The results show high potential to improve derivation efficiency by adopting the approach in practice. Finally, we report the lessons learned that raise the opportunities and challenges for future research

Boosting Extra-Functional Code Reusability in Cyber-Physical Production Systems: The Error Handling Case Study

“…Thus, documenting software variants only is not sufficient, as the variability's cause is missing. SPLE approaches, which target the interdisciplinary character of CPPS, are in theory available, such as [14][15][16]. However, they are not yet applicable in the industry due to challenges introduced by varying control logic and the dependencies to extra-functional aspects such as errorhandling, which is additionally highly dependent on factors like the customer premises.…”

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

“…Thus, in the field of aPS, SPLE approaches are not applicable without further adaptions to represent the mechatronic characteristics of the systems. Even though approaches for interdisciplinary product lines are already available such as [48], [49], [50], [51], they have not yet been widely established in the field of aPS. Apart from variant management, also version management and evolution are relevant factors regarding reuse.…”