The 2014 International Planning Competition: Progress and Trends

We review the 2014 International Planning Competition (IPC-2014), the eighth in a series of competitions starting in 1998. IPC-2014 was held in three separate parts to assess state-of-the-art in three prominent areas of planning research: the deterministic (classical) part (IPCD), the learning part (IPCL), and the probabilistic part (IPPC). Each part evaluated planning systems in ways that pushed the edge of existing planner performance by introducing new challenges, novel tasks, or both. The competition surpassed again the number of competitors than its predecessor, highlighting the competition’s central role in shaping the landscape of ongoing developments in evaluating planning systems

Cyber physical systems implementation for asset management improvement: A framework for the transition

Libro en Open AccessThe transformation of the industry due to recent technologies introduction is an evolving process whose engines are competitiveness and sustainability, understood in its broadest sense (environmental, economic and social). This process is facing, due to the current state of scientific and technological development, a new challenge yet even more important: the transition from discrete technological solutions that respond to isolated problems, to a global conception where the assets, plant, processes and engineering systems are conceived, designed and operated as an integrated complex unit. This vision is evolving besides a set of concepts that are, in some way, to guide this development: Smart Factories, Cyber-Physical Systems, Factory of the Future or Industry 4.0, are examples. The full integration of the operation and maintenance (O&M) processes in the production systems is a key topic within this new paradigm. Not only that, this evolution necessarily results in the emergence of new processes and needs of O&M, i.e. also, the O&M will undergo a profound transformation. The transition from actual isolated production assets to such Industry 4.0 with CPS is far from easy. This document presents a proposal to develop such transition adapting one iteration of the Model of Maintenance Management (MMM) integrated into ISO 55000 to the complexity of incorporating “System of Systems” CPSs maintenance. It involves several stages: identification, prioritization, risk management, planning, scheduling, execution, control, and improvement supported by system engineering techniques and agile/concurrent project managemen

Considerations regarding the agile development of portals

Starting with methodologies, methods and techniques used generally in the development of information systems, a personal approach regarding quick development of portals has been introduced. After a strict theoretical foundation the proposal has been applied within a real collaborative knowledge portal development project. We consider the proposed agile development approach (based on the prototype technique enriched with MDA valences) suitable to all kind of information systems. The agile development framework establishes the life-cycle phases of product development taking into account the desired functionalities.portal, prototype technique, model driven architecture, agile development

Non-Technical Individual Skills are Weakly Connected to the Maturity of Agile Practices

Context: Existing knowledge in agile software development suggests that individual competency (e.g. skills) is a critical success factor for agile projects. While assuming that technical skills are important for every kind of software development project, many researchers suggest that non-technical individual skills are especially important in agile software development. Objective: In this paper, we investigate whether non-technical individual skills can predict the use of agile practices. Method: Through creating a set of multiple linear regression models using a total of 113 participants from agile teams in six software development organizations from The Netherlands and Brazil, we analyzed the predictive power of non-technical individual skills in relation to agile practices. Results: The results show that there is surprisingly low power in using non-technical individual skills to predict (i.e. explain variance in) the mature use of agile practices in software development. Conclusions: Therefore, we conclude that looking at non-technical individual skills is not the optimal level of analysis when trying to understand, and explain, the mature use of agile practices in the software development context. We argue that it is more important to focus on the non-technical skills as a team-level capacity instead of assuring that all individuals possess such skills when understanding the use of the agile practices.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

Identifying Agile Requirements Engineering Patterns in Industry

Agile Software Development (ASD) is gaining in popularity in today´s business world. Industry is adopting agile methodologies both to accelerate value delivery and to enhance the ability to deal with changing requirements. However, ASD has a great impact on how Requirements Engineering (RE) is carried out in agile environments. The integration of Human-Centered Design (HCD) plays an important role due to the focus on user and stakeholder involvement. To this end, we aim to introduce agile RE patterns as main objective of this paper. On the one hand, we will describe our pattern mining process based on empirical research in literature and industry. On the other hand, we will discuss our results and provide two examples of agile RE patterns. In sum, the pattern mining process identifies 41 agile RE patterns. The accumulated knowledge will be shared by means of a web application.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2016-76956-C3-2-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

Involving External Stakeholders in Project Courses

Problem: The involvement of external stakeholders in capstone projects and project courses is desirable due to its potential positive effects on the students. Capstone projects particularly profit from the inclusion of an industrial partner to make the project relevant and help students acquire professional skills. In addition, an increasing push towards education that is aligned with industry and incorporates industrial partners can be observed. However, the involvement of external stakeholders in teaching moments can create friction and could, in the worst case, lead to frustration of all involved parties. Contribution: We developed a model that allows analysing the involvement of external stakeholders in university courses both in a retrospective fashion, to gain insights from past course instances, and in a constructive fashion, to plan the involvement of external stakeholders. Key Concepts: The conceptual model and the accompanying guideline guide the teachers in their analysis of stakeholder involvement. The model is comprised of several activities (define, execute, and evaluate the collaboration). The guideline provides questions that the teachers should answer for each of these activities. In the constructive use, the model allows teachers to define an action plan based on an analysis of potential stakeholders and the pedagogical objectives. In the retrospective use, the model allows teachers to identify issues that appeared during the project and their underlying causes. Drawing from ideas of the reflective practitioner, the model contains an emphasis on reflection and interpretation of the observations made by the teacher and other groups involved in the courses. Key Lessons: Applying the model retrospectively to a total of eight courses shows that it is possible to reveal hitherto implicit risks and assumptions and to gain a better insight into the interaction...Comment: Abstract shortened since arxiv.org limits length of abstracts. See paper/pdf for full abstract. Paper is forthcoming, accepted August 2017. Arxiv version 2 corrects misspelled author nam

Service Level Agreement-based GDPR Compliance and Security assurance in (multi)Cloud-based systems

Compliance with the new European General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) and security assurance are currently two major challenges of Cloud-based systems. GDPR compliance implies both privacy and security mechanisms definition, enforcement and control, including evidence collection. This paper presents a novel DevOps framework aimed at supporting Cloud consumers in designing, deploying and operating (multi)Cloud systems that include the necessary privacy and security controls for ensuring transparency to end-users, third parties in service provision (if any) and law enforcement authorities. The framework relies on the risk-driven specification at design time of privacy and security level objectives in the system Service Level Agreement (SLA) and in their continuous monitoring and enforcement at runtime.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644429 and No 780351, MUSA project and ENACT project, respectively. We would also like to acknowledge all the members of the MUSA Consortium and ENACT Consortium for their valuable help

Flexible Global Software Development (GSD): Antecedents of Success in Requirements Analysis

Globalization of software development has resulted in a rapid shift away from the traditional collocated, on-site development model, to the offshoring model. Emerging trends indicate an increasing interest in offshoring even in early phases like requirements analysis. Additionally, the flexibility offered by the agile development approach makes it attractive for adaptation in globally distributed software work. A question of significance then is what impacts the success of offshoring earlier phases, like requirements analysis, in a flexible and globally distributed environment? This article incorporates the stance of control theory to posit a research model that examines antecedent factors such as requirements change, facilitation by vendor and client site-coordinators, control, and computer-mediated communication. The impact of these factors on success of requirements analysis projects in a “flexible” global setting is tested using two quasi-experiments involving students from Management Development Institute, India and Marquette University, USA. Results indicate that formal modes of control significantly influence project success during requirements analysis. Further, facilitation by both client and vendor site coordinators positively impacts requirements analysis success

Applying performance measures to support informed decision making at an operational level

Performance Measurement Systems (PMS) have commonly been applied to evaluate and reward performances at managerial levels, especially in the context of supply chain management. However, evidence suggests that the effective use of PMS can also positively influence the behaviour and improve performance at an operational level. The purpose of the study described in this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that adopts performance measures for ex-ante decision-making at an operational level within the supply chain. A case study at Coca-Cola Enterprises has been carried out and as a result, a conceptual framework of the PMS has been developed