Visual product architecture modelling for structuring data in a PLM system

Part 8: Formalization for PLMInternational audienceThe goal of this paper is to determine the role of a product architecture model to support communication and to form the basis for developing and maintaining information of product structures in a PLM system. This paper contains descriptions of a modelling tool to represent a product architecture in a company to support the development of a family of products, as well as the reasons leading to the use of the specific model and its terminology. The fundamental idea for using the architecture model is that an improved understanding of the whole product system, will lead to better decision making. Moreover, it is discussed how the sometimes intangible elements and phenomena within an architecture model can be visually modeled in order to form the basis for a data model in a PLM system

Trusted product lines

This thesis describes research undertaken into the application of software product line approaches to the development of high-integrity, embedded real-time software systems that are subject to regulatory approval/certification. The motivation for the research arose from a real business need to reduce cost and lead time of aerospace software development projects. The thesis hypothesis can be summarised as follows: It is feasible to construct product line models that allow the specification of required behaviour within a reference architecture that can be transformed into an effective product implementation, whilst enabling suitable supporting evidence for certification to be produced. The research concentrates on the following four main areas: 1. Construction of an argument framework in which the application of product line techniques to high-integrity software development can be assessed and critically reviewed. 2. Definition of a product-line reference architecture that can host components containing variation. 3. Design of model transformations that can automatically instantiate products from a set of components hosted within the reference architecture. 4. Identification of verification approaches that may provide evidence that the transformations designed in step 3 above preserve properties of interest from the product line model into the product instantiations. Together, these areas form the basis of an approach we term “Trusted Product Lines”. The approach has been evaluated and validated by deployment on a real aerospace project; the approach has been used to produce DO-178B/ED-12B Level A applications of over 300 KSLOC in size. The effect of this approach on the software development process has been critically evaluated in this thesis, both quantitatively (in terms of cost and relative size of process phases) and qualitatively (in terms of software quality). The “Trusted Product Lines” approach, as described within the thesis, shows how product line approaches can be applied to high-integrity software development, and how certification evidence created and arguments constructed for products instantiated from the product line. To the best of our knowledge, the development and effective application of product line techniques in a certification environment is novel and unique

Business process model customisation using domain-driven controlled variability management and rule generation

Business process models are abstract descriptions and as such should be applicable in different situations. In order for a single process model to be reused, we need support for configuration and customisation. Often, process objects and activities are domain-specific. We use this observation and allow domain models to drive the customisation. Process variability models, known from product line modelling and manufacturing, can control this customisation by taking into account the domain models. While activities and objects have already been studied, we investigate here the constraints that govern a process execution. In order to integrate these constraints into a process model, we use a rule-based constraints language for a workflow and process model. A modelling framework will be presented as a development approach for customised rules through a feature model. Our use case is content processing, represented by an abstract ontology-based domain model in the framework and implemented by a customisation engine. The key contribution is a conceptual definition of a domain-specific rule variability language

Business process model customisation using domain-driven controlled variability management and rule generation

Business process models are abstract descriptions and as such should be applicable in different situations. In order for a single process model to be reused, we need support for configuration and customisation. Often, process objects and activities are domain-specific. We use this observation and allow domain models to drive the customisation. Process variability models, known from product line modelling and manufacturing, can control this customisation by taking into account the domain models. While activities and objects have already been studied, we investigate here the constraints that govern a process execution. In order to integrate these constraints into a process model, we use a rule-based constraints language for a workflow and process model. A modelling framework will be presented as a development approach for customised rules through a feature model. Our use case is content processing, represented by an abstract ontology-based domain model in the framework and implemented by a customisation engine. The key contribution is a conceptual definition of a domain-specific rule variability language

Intelligent systems in manufacturing: current developments and future prospects

Global competition and rapidly changing customer requirements are demanding increasing changes in manufacturing environments. Enterprises are required to constantly redesign their products and continuously reconfigure their manufacturing systems. Traditional approaches to manufacturing systems do not fully satisfy this new situation. Many authors have proposed that artificial intelligence will bring the flexibility and efficiency needed by manufacturing systems. This paper is a review of artificial intelligence techniques used in manufacturing systems. The paper first defines the components of a simplified intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS), the different Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to be considered and then shows how these AI techniques are used for the components of IMS

Analysing the requirements for monitoring and switching: A problem-oriented approach

Context-aware applications monitor changes in their environment and switch their behaviour in order to continue satisfying requirements. Specifying monitoring and switching in such applications can be difficult due to their dependence on varying environmental properties. Two problems require analysis: the detection of changes in the operating environment to assess their impact on requirements satisfaction, and the adaptation of application behaviour to ensure requirements satisfaction. This thesis borrows from the world of problem-oriented software system development and product-lines to analyse monitoring and switching problems on one hand and contextual changes on the other. It proposes a shift of focus from treating monitoring and switching as activities to be analysed as part of the design, to treating them as part of the problem whose requirements are analysed. We claim three novel contributions: (1) we provide concepts and mechanisms for analysing monitoring and switching problems in context; (2) we formulate and prove two theorems for monitoring and switching, which define the necessary and sufficient conditions for monitoring a contextual variable and for switching application behaviour to restore requirements satisfaction when they are violated; and (3) we provide a tool for automated derivation of the conditions for monitoring and switching. Our approach is evaluated using two case studies of a proof of concept mobile phone productline and a logistics company that delivers and monitors products across the UK. We found the applications of the approach to be effective in analysing unforeseen requirements violations caused by changes in the systems operating environments. Furthermore, the monitoring and switching mechanisms derived from the analysis enabled the software to become, to some extent, context-aware

Spl needs an automatic holistic model for software reasoning with feature models

The number of features and their relations in a Software Product Line (SPL) may lead to have SPLs with a big number of potential products which may be difficult to manage. This number of potential products widely increases if, as well as functional features, extra–functional features are taken into account. There are several questions that a SPL engineer would like to ask to his SPL model such as: is it a valid model?, how many potential products a SPL has?, is there any product fulfilling the customer needs? and so forth. These types of questions are error prone to answer without an automatic support. The work reported in this position paper glipmses some misconceptions of previous related proposals: we uphold the need to have an holistic product line model were not distinction are made between functional and extra–functional features, we propose a model based on a formalism strong enough to support both type o features: contraint programming.Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología TIC2003-02737-C02-0

Collaborative-demographic hybrid for financial: product recommendation

Internship Report presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced AnalyticsDue to the increased availability of mature data mining and analysis technologies supporting CRM processes, several financial institutions are striving to leverage customer data and integrate insights regarding customer behaviour, needs, and preferences into their marketing approach. As decision support systems assisting marketing and commercial efforts, Recommender Systems applied to the financial domain have been gaining increased attention. This thesis studies a Collaborative- Demographic Hybrid Recommendation System, applied to the financial services sector, based on real data provided by a Portuguese private commercial bank. This work establishes a framework to support account managers’ advice on which financial product is most suitable for each of the bank’s corporate clients. The recommendation problem is further developed by conducting a performance comparison for both multi-output regression and multiclass classification prediction approaches. Experimental results indicate that multiclass architectures are better suited for the prediction task, outperforming alternative multi-output regression models on the evaluation metrics considered. Withal, multiclass Feed-Forward Neural Networks, combined with Recursive Feature Elimination, is identified as the topperforming algorithm, yielding a 10-fold cross-validated F1 Measure of 83.16%, and achieving corresponding values of Precision and Recall of 84.34%, and 85.29%, respectively. Overall, this study provides important contributions for positioning the bank’s commercial efforts around customers’ future requirements. By allowing for a better understanding of customers’ needs and preferences, the proposed Recommender allows for more personalized and targeted marketing contacts, leading to higher conversion rates, corporate profitability, and customer satisfaction and loyalty

CBR and MBR techniques: review for an application in the emergencies domain

The purpose of this document is to provide an in-depth analysis of current reasoning engine practice and the integration strategies of Case Based Reasoning and Model Based Reasoning that will be used in the design and development of the RIMSAT system. RIMSAT (Remote Intelligent Management Support and Training) is a European Commission funded project designed to: a.. Provide an innovative, 'intelligent', knowledge based solution aimed at improving the quality of critical decisions b.. Enhance the competencies and responsiveness of individuals and organisations involved in highly complex, safety critical incidents - irrespective of their location. In other words, RIMSAT aims to design and implement a decision support system that using Case Base Reasoning as well as Model Base Reasoning technology is applied in the management of emergency situations. This document is part of a deliverable for RIMSAT project, and although it has been done in close contact with the requirements of the project, it provides an overview wide enough for providing a state of the art in integration strategies between CBR and MBR technologies.Postprint (published version