Maintainability and evolvability of control software in machine and plant manufacturing -- An industrial survey

Automated Production Systems (aPS) have lifetimes of up to 30-50 years, throughout which the desired products change ever more frequently. This requires flexible, reusable control software that can be easily maintained and evolved. To evaluate selected criteria that are especially relevant for maturity in software maintainability and evolvability of aPS, the approach SWMAT4aPS+ builds on a questionnaire with 52 questions. The three main research questions cover updates of software modules and success factors for both cross-disciplinary development as well as reusable models. This paper presents the evaluation results of 68 companies from machine and plant manufacturing (MPM). Companies providing automation devices and/or engineering tools will be able to identify challenges their customers in MPM face. Validity is ensured through feedback of the participating companies and an analysis of the statistical unambiguousness of the results. From a software or systems engineering point of view, almost all criteria are fulfilled below expectations

Using an MBSE approach for automation control system selection in long steel products hot rolling plants

Abstract: Automation systems in long steel products hot rolling plants are prone to performance failures with the potential of serious negative impact on the business. The selection process of these automation systems therefore requires careful consideration of various selection factors to maximize plant performance. The need was therefore identified to investigate the use of a suitable management approach to guide engineering automation teams in the long steel products hot rolling plants in the selection of automation systems. At the core is the need for an in-depth understanding of the issues surrounding distributed and hierarchical automation systems in long steel products plants. This includes identifying the challenges during the selection process, using sound engineering management principles. Current automation selection techniques were investigated through a survey, interviews and a case study. It was then decided to use a Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach, which utilises systems engineering principles together with digital technology to create models to simplify the understanding of complex problems and relationships. This was then used to develop a management framework for automation systems selection in support of the business case of long steel products hot rolling plants

A comparison of processing techniques for producing prototype injection moulding inserts.

This project involves the investigation of processing techniques for producing low-cost moulding inserts used in the particulate injection moulding (PIM) process. Prototype moulds were made from both additive and subtractive processes as well as a combination of the two. The general motivation for this was to reduce the entry cost of users when considering PIM. PIM cavity inserts were first made by conventional machining from a polymer block using the pocket NC desktop mill. PIM cavity inserts were also made by fused filament deposition modelling using the Tiertime UP plus 3D printer. The injection moulding trials manifested in surface finish and part removal defects. The feedstock was a titanium metal blend which is brittle in comparison to commodity polymers. That in combination with the mesoscale features, small cross-sections and complex geometries were considered the main problems. For both processing methods, fixes were identified and made to test the theory. These consisted of a blended approach that saw a combination of both the additive and subtractive processes being used. The parts produced from the three processing methods are investigated and their respective merits and issues are discussed

Reducing risk in pre-production investigations through undergraduate engineering projects.

This poster is the culmination of final year Bachelor of Engineering Technology (B.Eng.Tech) student projects in 2017 and 2018. The B.Eng.Tech is a level seven qualification that aligns with the Sydney accord for a three-year engineering degree and hence is internationally benchmarked. The enabling mechanism of these projects is the industry connectivity that creates real-world projects and highlights the benefits of the investigation of process at the technologist level. The methodologies we use are basic and transparent, with enough depth of technical knowledge to ensure the industry partners gain from the collaboration process. The process we use minimizes the disconnect between the student and the industry supervisor while maintaining the academic freedom of the student and the commercial sensitivities of the supervisor. The general motivation for this approach is the reduction of the entry cost of the industry to enable consideration of new technologies and thereby reducing risk to core business and shareholder profits. The poster presents several images and interpretive dialogue to explain the positive and negative aspects of the student process

Emergent technologies for inter-enterprises collaboration and business evaluation

International audienceConventional manufacturing systems are designed for intra-enterprise process management, and they hardly handle processes with tasks using extra-enterprise boundaries data. Besides, inter-enterprise collaboration and new IT enablers for industry 4.0 are becoming a highly topical issue to study, due to : (a) The emergence of new technologies mainly Internet of Things, big data processing and Cyber-Physical systems (b) The new customers' needs that face the SMEs. Many constraints and issues have to be taken into account before establishing Inter-enterprises collaboration, namely: The product information, the business processes and the heterogeneous data. Moreover, the exponential growth of data coming from all the enterprises causes several challenges regarding their exploitation. In this context, this study is interested in Big Data capabilities to help Small and Medium Enterprises to find out more lurking opportunities. We have focus on the combination between emergent IT technologies, mainly Big Data, and inter-interprises collaboration in order to provide an added value. The result of this study is a new approach, that could be adapted by SMEs, for new project evaluation within a network of enterprises

Proceedings of the 4th Workshop of the MPM4CPS COST Action

Proceedings of the 4th Workshop of the MPM4CPS COST Action with the presentations delivered during the workshop and papers with extended versions of some of them

Road2CPS priorities and recommendations for research and innovation in cyber-physical systems

This document summarises the findings of the Road2CPS project, co-financed by the European Commission under the H2020 Research and Innovation Programme, to develop a roadmap and recommendations for strategic action required for future deployment of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The term Cyber-Physical System describes hardware-software systems, which tightly couple the physical world and the virtual world. They are established from networked embedded systems that are connected with the outside world through sensors and actuators and have the capability to collaborate, adapt, and evolve. In the ARTEMIS Strategic Research Agenda 2016, CPS are described as ‘Embedded Intelligent ICT Systems’ that make products smarter, more interconnected, interdependent, collaborative, and autonomous. In the future world of CPS, a huge number of devices connected to the physical world will be able to exchange data with each other, access web services, and interact with people. Moreover, information systems will sense, monitor and even control the physical world via Cyber-Physical Systems and the Internet of Things (HiPEAC Vision 2015). Cyber-Physical Systems find their application in many highly relevant areas to our society: multi-modal transport, health, smart factories, smart grids and smart cities amongst others. The deployment of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is expected to increase substantially over the next decades, holding great potential for novel applications and innovative product development. Digital technologies have already pervaded day-to-day life massively, affecting all kinds of interactions between humans and their environment. However, the inherent complexity of CPSs, as well as the need to meet optimised performance and comply with essential requirements like safety, privacy, security, raises many questions that are currently being explored by the research community. Road2CPS aims at accelerating uptake and implementation of these efforts. The Road2CPS project identifying and analysing the relevant technology fields and related research priorities to fuel the development of trustworthy CPS, as well as the specific technologies, needs and barriers for a successful implementation in different application domains and to derive recommendations for strategic action. The document at hand was established through an interactive, community-based approach, involving over 300 experts from academia, industry and policy making through a series of workshops and consultations. Visions and priorities of recently produced roadmaps in the area of CPS, IoT (Internet of Things), SoS (System-of-Systems) and FoF (Factories of the Future) were discussed, complemented by sharing views and perspectives on CPS implementation in application domains, evolving multi-sided eco-systems as well as business and policy related barriers, enablers and success factors. From the workshops and accompanying activities recommendations for future research and innovation activities were derived and topics and timelines for their implementation proposed. Amongst the technological topics, and related future research priorities ‘integration, interoperability, standards’ ranged highest in all workshops. The topic is connected to digital platforms and reference architectures, which have already become a key priority theme for the EC and their Digitisation Strategy as well as the work on the right standards to help successful implementation of CPSs. Other themes of very high technology/research relevance revealed to be ‘modelling and simulation’, ‘safety and dependability’, ‘security and privacy’, ‘big data and real-time analysis’, ‘ubiquitous autonomy and forecasting’ as well as ‘HMI/human machine awareness’. Next to this, themes emerged including ‘decision making and support’, ‘CPS engineering (requirements, design)’, ‘CPS life-cycle management’, ‘System-of-Systems’, ‘distributed management’, ‘cognitive CPS’, ‘emergence, complexity, adaptability and flexibility’ and work on the foundations of CPS and ‘cross-disciplinary research/CPS Science’

Automated data-driven creation of the Digital Twin of a brownfield plant

The success of the reconfiguration of existing manufacturing systems, so called brownfield systems, heavily relies on the knowledge about the system. Reconfiguration can be planned, supported and simplified with the Digital Twin of the system providing this knowledge. However, digital models as the basis of a Digital Twin are usually missing for these plants. This article presents a data-driven approach to gain knowledge about a brownfield system to create the digital models of a Digital Twin and their relations. Finally, a proof of concept shows that process data and position data as data sources deliver the relations between the models of the Digital Twin.Comment: 7 Pages, 5 figures. Accepted at IEEE ETFA 202