Continuous Experimentation for Automotive Software on the Example of a Heavy Commercial Vehicle in Daily Operation

As the automotive industry focuses its attention more and more towards the software functionality of vehicles, techniques to deliver new software value at a fast pace are needed. Continuous Experimentation, a practice coming from the web-based systems world, is one of such techniques. It enables researchers and developers to use real-world data to verify their hypothesis and steer the software evolution based on performances and user preferences, reducing the reliance on simulations and guesswork. Several challenges prevent the verbatim adoption of this practice on automotive cyber-physical systems, e.g., safety concerns and limitations from computational resources; nonetheless, the automotive field is starting to take interest in this technique. This work aims at demonstrating and evaluating a prototypical Continuous Experimentation infrastructure, implemented on a distributed computational system housed in a commercial truck tractor that is used in daily operations by a logistic company on public roads. The system comprises computing units and sensors, and software deployment and data retrieval are only possible remotely via a mobile data connection due to the commercial interests of the logistics company. This study shows that the proposed experimentation process resulted in the development team being able to base software development choices on the real-world data collected during the experimental procedure. Additionally, a set of previously identified design criteria to enable Continuous Experimentation on automotive systems was discussed and their validity confirmed in the light of the presented work.Comment: Paper accepted to the 14th European Conference on Software Architecture (ECSA 2020). 16 pages, 5 figure

Wake up, wake up! It's me! It's my life! patient narratives on person-centeredness in the integrated care context: a qualitative study

Person-centered care emphasizes a holistic, humanistic approach that puts patients first, at the center of medical care. Person-centeredness is also considered a core element of integrated care. Yet typologies of integrated care mainly describe how patients fit within integrated services, rather than how services fit into the patient's world. Patient-centeredness has been commonly defined through physician's behaviors aimed at delivering patient-centered care. Yet, it is unclear how 'person-centeredness' is realized in integrated care through the patient voice. We aimed to explore patient narratives of person-centeredness in the integrated care context

Automated User Interaction Analysis for Workflow-Based Web Portals

Success in the software market requires constant improvement of the software. These improvements however have to directly align with the needs of the users of the software. A recent trend in software engineering is to collect post-deployment data about how users use a software system. We report in this paper about a case study with an industrial partner in which (1) we identified which data has to be collected for a web-based portal system, (2) implemented the data collection, and (3) performed an experiment comparing the collected data with answers of the test subjects in a survey

Automated user interaction analysis for workflow-based web portals

Success in the software market requires constant improvement of the software. These improvements however have to directly align with the needs of the users of the software. A recent trend in software engineering is to collect post-deployment data about how users use a software system. We report in this paper about a case study with an industrial partner in which (1) we identified which data has to be collected for a web-based portal system, (2) implemented the data collection, and (3) performed an experiment comparing the collected data with answers of the test subjects in a survey

Ecosystem-Driven Software Development : A case study on the emerging challenges in inter-organizational R&D

Most companies today experience a situation in which they are part of a complex business ecosystem of stakeholders that influence business outcomes. Especially for companies transitioning from selling products to becoming systems, solutions and services providers, this is causing a significant shift in their business strategies and relationships. Instead of focusing on internal processes, companies need to strategically position themselves in a dynamic network of actors to accelerate synergies and value co-creation. However, while this shift in business strategy is inevitable, it is not without challenges. An understanding for how to align internal, as well as external processes is critical, as well as a careful assessment on how to establish strategic partnerships in a dynamic network of interests. Based on on-going research, this paper outlines the emerging challenges that most software development companies face when adopting an ecosystem-driven approach, and the different mitigation strategies to manage these

Ecosystem-driven software development: A case study on the emerging challenges in inter-organizational R&D

Most companies today experience a situation in which they are part of a complex business ecosystem of stakeholders that influence business outcomes. Especially for companies transitioning from selling products to becoming systems, solutions and services providers, this is causing a significant shift in their business strategies and relationships. Instead of focusing on internal processes, companies need to strategically position themselves in a dynamic network of actors to accelerate synergies and value co-creation. However, while this shift in business strategy is inevitable, it is not without challenges. An understanding for how to align internal, as well as external processes is critical, as well as a careful assessment on how to establish strategic partnerships in a dynamic network of interests. Based on on-going research, this paper outlines the emerging challenges that most software development companies face when adopting an ecosystem-driven approach, and the different mitigation strategies to manage these

Challenges and Strategies for Undertaking Continuous Experimentation to Embedded Systems : Industry and Research Perspectives

Context: Continuous experimentation is frequently used in web-facing companies and it is starting to gain the attention of embedded systems companies. However, embedded systems companies have different challenges and requirements to run experiments in their systems. Objective: This paper explores the challenges during the adoption of continuous experimentation in embedded systems from both industry practice and academic research. It presents strategies, guidelines, and solutions to overcome each of the identified challenges. Method: This research was conducted in two parts. The first part is a literature review with the aim to analyze the challenges in adopting continuous experimentation from the research perspective. The second part is a multiple case study based on interviews and workshop sessions with five companies to understand the challenges from the industry perspective and how they are working to overcome them. Results: This study found a set of twelve challenges divided into three areas; technical, business, and organizational challenges and strategies grouped into three categories, architecture, data handling and development processes. Conclusions: The set of identified challenges are presented with a set of strategies, guidelines, and solutions. To the knowledge of the authors, this paper is the first to provide an extensive list of challenges and strategies for continuous experimentation in embedded systems. Moreover, this research points out open challenges and the need for new tools and novel solutions for the further development of experimentation in embedded systems

Challenges and strategies for undertaking continuous experimentation to embedded systems: Industry and research perspectives

Context: Continuous experimentation is frequently used in web-facing companies and it is starting to gain the attention of embedded systems companies. However, embedded systems companies have different challenges and requirements to run experiments in their systems. Objective: This paper explores the challenges during the adoption of continuous experimentation in embedded systems from both industry practice and academic research. It presents strategies, guidelines, and solutions to overcome each of the identified challenges. Method: This research was conducted in two parts. The first part is a literature review with the aim to analyze the challenges in adopting continuous experimentation from the research perspective. The second part is a multiple case study based on interviews and workshop sessions with five companies to understand the challenges from the industry perspective and how they are working to overcome them. Results: This study found a set of twelve challenges divided into three areas; technical, business, and organizational challenges and strategies grouped into three categories, architecture, data handling and development processes. Conclusions: The set of identified challenges are presented with a set of strategies, guidelines, and solutions. To the knowledge of the authors, this paper is the first to provide an extensive list of challenges and strategies for continuous experimentation in embedded systems. Moreover, this research points out open challenges and the need for new tools and novel solutions for the further development of experimentation in embedded systems