Mismatch patterns in similar business processes

To unify similar business processes, such as processes of similar business units or similar organizations, the similarities and differences between these business processes must be detected and the differences must be resolved. This paper presents a collection of patterns that describe frequently occurring mismatches between similar business processes. These patterns are helpful in the mismatch detection step. We discovered them in practice by comparing processes that we obtained from different business units in two organizations. The patterns help when merging processes in case of a merger between organizations. They also help when merging processes to construct a standardized process that allows organizations that adhere to the standard to interact successfully

Paradigm shift in PLC programming

In the programming of PLCSystems (Programmable Logic Controller) in building automation there are no vital changes over the past few years. Most user of PLCSystems in building automation do the programming in fbd (functional block diagram). The users normally start their projects with the programming of the PLCSoftware. After that the HMI (Human Machine Interface) or the SCADASystem (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) are added as subsequent Tasks. This paper present a new approach to a project, the approach is changed from a bottom up into a top down one. The starting point of a project is the plant diagram. The programming is done in the plant diagram. Template objects (e.g. for pumps) created with the object orientated paradigm are used to accomplish this task. The created PLCSoftware runs in a virtual machine on the PLCSystem and thus will be reusable on PLCSystems of different manufacturers

Maßgeschneiderte Produktlinienextraktion

Industry faces an increasing number of challenges regarding the functionality, efficiency and reliability of software. A common approach to reduce the linked development effort and respective costs are model-based languages, such as Matlab/Simulink and statecharts. While these languages help companies during development of single systems, the high demand for customized software is an increasing challenge. As a result, variants with high similarity and only slight differences have to be developed in an efficient way. As reimplementation of complex functionality for each variant is no option, copies of existing solutions are often modified for new customers. In the short-run, this so-called clone-and-own approach allows to save costs as existing solutions can easily be reused. However, this approach also involves risks as the relations between the copied systems are rarely documented and errors have to be fixed for each variant in isolation. Thus, with a growing number of potentially large system copies, the resulting maintenance effort can become a problem. To overcome these problems, this thesis contributes an approach to semi-automatically migrate existing model variants to software product lines. These product lines allow to generate all variants from the identified reusable artifacts. As industry uses a variety of different modeling languages, the focus of the approach lies on an easy adaptation for different languages. Furthermore, the approach can be custom-tailored to include domain knowledge or language-specific details in the variability identification. The first step of the approach performs a high-level analysis of variants to identify outliers (e.g., variants that diverged too much from the rest) and clusters of strongly related variants. The second step executes variability mining to identify corresponding low-level variability relations (i.e. the common and varying parts) for these clusters. The third step uses these detailed variability relations for an automatic migration of the compared variants to a delta-oriented software product line. The approach is evaluated using publicly available case studies with industrial background as well as model variants provided by an industry partner.Die Industrie steht einer steigenden Anzahl an Herausforderungen bezüglich der Funktionalität, Effizienz und Zuverlässigkeit von Software gegenüber. Um den damit verbundenen Entwicklungsaufwand und entsprechende Kosten zu reduzieren, werden häufig modellbasierte Sprachen wie Matlab/Simulink oder Zustandsautomaten eingesetzt. Obwohl diese Sprachen die Unternehmen während der Entwicklung von Einzelsystemen unterstützen, führt die große Nachfrage nach maßgeschneiderter Software zu neuen Herausforderungen. Entsprechend müssen Varianten mit hoher Ähnlichkeit und nur geringfügigen Unterschieden effizient entwickelt werden. Da eine Neuimplementierung komplexer Funktionalität für jede Variante keine Option darstellt, werden häufig Kopien existierender Lösungen für Kunden angepasst. Auf kurze Sicht ermöglicht dieser sogenannte clone-and-own-Ansatz Kosten zu sparen, da existierende Lösungen leicht wiederverwendet werden können. Jedoch birgt der Ansatz auch Risiken, da Beziehungen zwischen den Systemkopien selten dokumentiert werden und Fehler für jede der Variante einzeln behoben werden müssen. Somit kann mit einer wachsenden Anzahl an möglicherweise umfangreichen Systemkopien der Wartungsaufwand zu einem Problem werden. Um diese Probleme zu lösen, bietet diese Arbeit einen Ansatz zur semi-automatischen Überführung existierender Modellvarianten in Softwareproduktlinien. Diese ermöglichen eine anschließende Generierung der Varianten aus den identifizierten wiederverwendbaren Artefakten. Da in der Industrie eine große Menge von Modellierungssprachen eingesetzt wird, liegt der Fokus auf der einfachen Adaption für unterschiedliche Sprachen. Zusätzlich kann durch Einbeziehung von Expertenwissen oder sprachspezifische Details die Variabilitätsidentifikation beeinflusst werden. Der erste Schritt des Ansatzes analysiert die Varianten auf hohem Abstraktionslevel, um Außenseiter (z.B. Varianten die stark von den restlichen Variaten abweichen) und Cluster von stark verwandten Varianten zu identifizieren. Der zweite Schritt analysiert diese Cluster auf niedrigem Abstraktionslevel, um entsprechende Variabilitätsrelationen (d.h. gemeinsame und unterschiedliche Teile) zu identifizieren. Der dritte Schritt nutzt diese detaillierten Variabilitätsrelationen für eine automatische Migration der verglichenen Varianten in eine delta-orientierte Softwareproduktlinie. Der Ansatz ist an Fallstudien mit industriellem Kontext sowie Modellvarianten eines Industriepartners evaluiert worden

Towards an Automatic Integration of Statecharts

The integration of statecharts is part of an integration methodology for object oriented views. Statecharts are the most important language for the representation of the behaviour of objects and are used in many object oriented modeling techniques, e.g. in UML ([23]). In this paper we focus on the situation where the behaviour of an object type is represented in several statecharts, which have to be integrated into a single statechart. The presented approach allows an automatic integration process but gives the designer possibilities to make own decisions to guide the integration process and to achieve qualitative design goals.