Applying Product Line Approach for a Control System Family

This thesis was done for Metso Corporation as a part of RESPO project. RESPO is one of the ten projects in EFFIMA (Energy and Life Cycle Efficient Machines) research program. EFFIMA belongs to FIMECC’s (Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster) Intelligent Solutions (IS) strategic research theme. The purpose of task 2 in RESPO is to develop models and design principles into the development of software architecture. The goal of this thesis is to study the possibilities of applying software product line approach to rock crushing control system family. Several software-related problems have been recognized with the control system family. These include the long lifecycles and heterogeneity in the family. Another challenge is to manage variations in the family. The uncontrolled variations and heterogeneity prevent the effective reuse and increase the amount of extra work throughout the product lifecycle. The product line approach is applied to find solutions to the problems presented before. The approach in this thesis concentrates in the early development phase of the product line that includes addressing business, organizational, process and technological aspects. The variations in the current product family are modelled by scoping the requirements and the properties of control systems. The scoping is used to provide an understanding of the development trend in the business segment and thus to estimate future requirements. It is also used to provide better means for variation management in the product family. The scoping process and the variation modelling are used to create preliminary modernized product line architecture for next generation control systems. Less development and maintenance costs, shorter time-to-market, less errors, increased expandability, strategic reuse and easier product management are key incentives for the new architecture approach. To achieve these, the organization and its processes must be adapted and committed to the product line concept. In order to gain full benefits from the approach, the strengths and the weaknesses of both architecture and the product line itself need to be evaluated

Applying Product Line Approach for a Control System Family

This thesis was done for Metso Corporation as a part of RESPO project. RESPO is one of the ten projects in EFFIMA (Energy and Life Cycle Efficient Machines) research program. EFFIMA belongs to FIMECC’s (Finnish Metals and Engineering Competence Cluster) Intelligent Solutions (IS) strategic research theme. The purpose of task 2 in RESPO is to develop models and design principles into the development of software architecture. The goal of this thesis is to study the possibilities of applying software product line approach to rock crushing control system family. Several software-related problems have been recognized with the control system family. These include the long lifecycles and heterogeneity in the family. Another challenge is to manage variations in the family. The uncontrolled variations and heterogeneity prevent the effective reuse and increase the amount of extra work throughout the product lifecycle. The product line approach is applied to find solutions to the problems presented before. The approach in this thesis concentrates in the early development phase of the product line that includes addressing business, organizational, process and technological aspects. The variations in the current product family are modelled by scoping the requirements and the properties of control systems. The scoping is used to provide an understanding of the development trend in the business segment and thus to estimate future requirements. It is also used to provide better means for variation management in the product family. The scoping process and the variation modelling are used to create preliminary modernized product line architecture for next generation control systems. Less development and maintenance costs, shorter time-to-market, less errors, increased expandability, strategic reuse and easier product management are key incentives for the new architecture approach. To achieve these, the organization and its processes must be adapted and committed to the product line concept. In order to gain full benefits from the approach, the strengths and the weaknesses of both architecture and the product line itself need to be evaluated

Continuous Rationale Management

Continuous Software Engineering (CSE) is a software life cycle model open to frequent changes in requirements or technology. During CSE, software developers continuously make decisions on the requirements and design of the software or the development process. They establish essential decision knowledge, which they need to document and share so that it supports the evolution and changes of the software. The management of decision knowledge is called rationale management. Rationale management provides an opportunity to support the change process during CSE. However, rationale management is not well integrated into CSE. The overall goal of this dissertation is to provide workflows and tool support for continuous rationale management. The dissertation contributes an interview study with practitioners from the industry, which investigates rationale management problems, current practices, and features to support continuous rationale management beneficial for practitioners. Problems of rationale management in practice are threefold: First, documenting decision knowledge is intrusive in the development process and an additional effort. Second, the high amount of distributed decision knowledge documentation is difficult to access and use. Third, the documented knowledge can be of low quality, e.g., outdated, which impedes its use. The dissertation contributes a systematic mapping study on recommendation and classification approaches to treat the rationale management problems. The major contribution of this dissertation is a validated approach for continuous rationale management consisting of the ConRat life cycle model extension and the comprehensive ConDec tool support. To reduce intrusiveness and additional effort, ConRat integrates rationale management activities into existing workflows, such as requirements elicitation, development, and meetings. ConDec integrates into standard development tools instead of providing a separate tool. ConDec enables lightweight capturing and use of decision knowledge from various artifacts and reduces the developers' effort through automatic text classification, recommendation, and nudging mechanisms for rationale management. To enable access and use of distributed decision knowledge documentation, ConRat defines a knowledge model of decision knowledge and other artifacts. ConDec instantiates the model as a knowledge graph and offers interactive knowledge views with useful tailoring, e.g., transitive linking. To operationalize high quality, ConRat introduces the rationale backlog, the definition of done for knowledge documentation, and metrics for intra-rationale completeness and decision coverage of requirements and code. ConDec implements these agile concepts for rationale management and a knowledge dashboard. ConDec also supports consistent changes through change impact analysis. The dissertation shows the feasibility, effectiveness, and user acceptance of ConRat and ConDec in six case study projects in an industrial setting. Besides, it comprehensively analyses the rationale documentation created in the projects. The validation indicates that ConRat and ConDec benefit CSE projects. Based on the dissertation, continuous rationale management should become a standard part of CSE, like automated testing or continuous integration

A Lean Enterprise Architecture Approach as an Enabler for Organizational Agility : Case: Metso Outotec

In the era where delivery speed is perceived more important than IT landscape integration, consistency and long-term planning, different architectural approaches have become important considerations of information systems management. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the need for a holistic EA is often overlooked, when organizations try to apply agile development models, which may lead to several problems, such as technical debt, redundant rework, inconsistent communication, decentralized and siloed architecture design, unsustainable architecture, and inconsistence in coding style. Hence, with the growing deployment of scaling agile methods there is a need for purpose-fit approaches to integrate EA frameworks to enable organization agility while maintaining long-term vision. This study aims to explore how EA activities are put into practices in a company deploying large-scale agile development methods – namely EA deliverables, EA benefits, EA concerns and EA enablers. In total, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted from a case company, and an analysis was done using the Gioia method. As a result, EA deliverables (business objective deliverables, intentional architecture deliverables, and emergent design deliverables), EA benefits (organizational agility and organizational robustness), EA concerns (immaturity, disengagement, urgency, and resistance and anti-patterns), and EA enablers (communication and collaboration, Lean EA, and EA culture) were identified. The enterprise architecture practices used by the case company were in line with the guidelines and best practices recommended by the literature and industry experts. Moreover, a literature review provided some theoretical constructs and suggestions, namely the Lean EA development (LEAD) method and the design principles of architectural thinking for supporting organizational agility, which can be recommended to be applied by the case company or any other organization scaling agile

Combining SOA and BPM Technologies for Cross-System Process Automation

This paper summarizes the results of an industry case study that introduced a cross-system business process automation solution based on a combination of SOA and BPM standard technologies (i.e., BPMN, BPEL, WSDL). Besides discussing major weaknesses of the existing, custom-built, solution and comparing them against experiences with the developed prototype, the paper presents a course of action for transforming the current solution into the proposed solution. This includes a general approach, consisting of four distinct steps, as well as specific action items that are to be performed for every step. The discussion also covers language and tool support and challenges arising from the transformation

Executable system architecting using systems modeling language in conjunction with Colored Petri Nets - a demonstration using the GEOSS network centric system

Models and simulation furnish abstractions to manage complexities allowing engineers to visualize the proposed system and to analyze and validate system behavior before constructing it. Unified Modeling Language (UML) and its systems engineering extension, Systems Modeling Language (SysML), provide a rich set of diagrams for systems specification. However, the lack of executable semantics of such notations limits the capability of analyzing and verifying defined specifications. This research has developed an executable system architecting framework based on SysML-CPN transformation, which introduces dynamic model analysis into SysML modeling by mapping SysML notations to Colored Petri Net (CPN), a graphical language for system design, specification, simulation, and verification. A graphic user interface was also integrated into the CPN model to enhance the model-based simulation. A set of methodologies has been developed to achieve this framework. The aim is to investigate system wide properties of the proposed system, which in turn provides a basis for system reconfiguration --Abstract, page iii

Midterm evaluation Research 2016-2018:

The research of TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (Faculteit Bouwkunde) covers the full spectrum of design, engineering, planning, and management of the built environment. Its research portfolio comprises the research that is conducted by four departments: Architecture Architectural Engineering + Technology (AE+T) Management in the Built Environment (MBE) Urbanism The faculty’s research focusses specifically at improving the design and performance of buildings, districts, cities and regions in order to better meet the requirements and expectations of their users and communities. From that perspective, much of the research that is conducted can be understood as applied science, appealing to the curiosity and the needs of other researchers, practitioners and the broader public alike. The research is a blend of humanities, social and engineering sciences. The humanities are strongest represented in the Architecture department, social sciences in the MBE and Urbanism departments, while the engineering sciences find their strongest representation in AE+T

Parametrisierung der Spezifikation von Qualitätsannotationen in Software-Architekturmodellen

Um qualitativ hochwertige Softwaresysteme zu entwickeln, muss in einem Softwareentwicklungsprozess eine Vielzahl von Qualitätsattributen berücksichtigt werden. Je höher die Komplexität von Softwaresystemen wird, desto wichtiger wird es, die zu erwartende Qualität im Vorfeld zu beurteilen. Jedoch existiert eine Reihe von Qualitätsattributen für Softwaresysteme, welche erst aus den strukturellen Eigenschaften der Softwarekomponenten in diesem Softwaresystem bestimmt werden können. Diese Qualitätsattribute werden in strukturierten und formalisierten Entscheidungsunterstützungsprozessen zur Optimierung der Softwarearchitektur oft nicht genutzt. Einer der Gründe dafür ist, dass dieses Wissen um die Qualitätsattribute einer Softwarekomponente in der Regel nur mit diesen Softwarekomponenten verknüpft ist und nicht mit den strukturellen Eigenschaften eines komponentenbasierten Softwaresystems. So bleibt ein Großteil dieses Wissens unberücksichtigt und kann daher nicht für Kompromissentscheidungen in automatisierten Softwarearchitektur-Optimierungsansätzen genutzt werden. In dieser Masterarbeit wird ein Rahmenwerk definiert, um Regeln zu spezifizieren zum Transformieren der Qualitätsattribute einer Softwarekomponente in Relation zu ihren strukturellen Eigenschaften in ihrem komponentenbasierten Softwaresystem. Mit diesem Ansatz kann architekturdefiniertes Wissen in Abhängigkeit der Systemarchitektur parametrisiert werden. Hierdurch können die Qualitätsattribute einer Softwarekomponente, welche erst aus den spezifischen Eigenschaften einer konkreten Softwarearchitektur abgeleitet werden können, spezifiziert und so auch ausgewertet werden. Durch diese verbesserten Auswertungen von strukturellen Eigenschaften sollen die Werkzeuge für Softwarearchitekten verbessert werden, sodass diese bessere Entscheidungen in einem Softwareentwicklungsprozess treffen können. Für die Validierung des Ansatzes werden zwei voneinander unabhängige Fallstudien durchgeführt, um dessen Anwendbarkeit und Nutzen zu zeigen. Zu diesem Zweck wird der Ansatz dieser Masterarbeit sowohl auf eine wissenschaftliche Fallstudie angewandt wie auch auf ein Beispiel, welches sich auf ein reales Industriesystem bezieht. Hiermit wird gezeigt, wie der Ansatz helfen kann, Kompromissentscheidungen über die Softwarearchitektur zwischen mehreren Qualitätsmerkmalen unter der Berücksichtigung der strukturellen Eigenschaften des Softwaresystems zu treffen

Energy efficiency for reducing carbon footprint in historic buildings: Comparing case in the UK and Malaysia

Climate changes seem to be one of the controversial conflicts for people in today's world and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which are one of the main reasons for climate changes, will be an appropriate solution for this alien. Buildings are one of the main resources for producing carbon dioxide emissions. For instance, around 40 percent of all carbon dioxide emission in the UK comes from buildings and so buildings especially heritage buildings need to improve their performance to contribute carbon reduction. The main aim of this research is to identify some acceptable and convenient ways for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in heritage buildings for controlling climate changes to some extent. In this paper, a desktop study was conducted to review the techniques and technologies to help us for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in heritage buildings. In this paper, the importance of heritage buildings and their elements such as wall, roof, window, door, floor has discussed and the main reasons for increasing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions have mentioned. In continuing, principles, risks, materials, methods, techniques and technologies for controlling energy loss of historic building elements have expressed. The results indicate that manufactured and transport of building materials will produce a large amount of carbon emissions and so the continued use of historic and heritage buildings can be an accommodative solution for this issue. For instance, in England in 2000 these processes accounted for more than 10 percent of the UK carbon dioxide emissions. It proves that conservation of heritage buildings is important not only for significant value of these buildings, but also for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. All the methods, techniques and technologies which have discussed in this paper are correspondent solution for the goal of reduction carbon dioxide emissions that produce through the life-cycle of historic buildings

Towards Interoperable Research Infrastructures for Environmental and Earth Sciences

This open access book summarises the latest developments on data management in the EU H2020 ENVRIplus project, which brought together more than 20 environmental and Earth science research infrastructures into a single community. It provides readers with a systematic overview of the common challenges faced by research infrastructures and how a ‘reference model guided’ engineering approach can be used to achieve greater interoperability among such infrastructures in the environmental and earth sciences. The 20 contributions in this book are structured in 5 parts on the design, development, deployment, operation and use of research infrastructures. Part one provides an overview of the state of the art of research infrastructure and relevant e-Infrastructure technologies, part two discusses the reference model guided engineering approach, the third part presents the software and tools developed for common data management challenges, the fourth part demonstrates the software via several use cases, and the last part discusses the sustainability and future directions