TY - JOUR
T1 - Maintainability and evolvability of control software in machine and plant manufacturing — An industrial survey
AU - Vogel-Heuser, Birgit
AU - Ocker, Felix
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Authors
PY - 2018/11
Y1 - 2018/11
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Automated production systems
KW - Cross-disciplinary development
KW - Modularity
KW - Reusability
KW - Software engineering
KW - Variant and version management
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85053072588&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.conengprac.2018.08.007
DO - 10.1016/j.conengprac.2018.08.007
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85053072588
SN - 0967-0661
VL - 80
SP - 157
EP - 173
JO - Control Engineering Practice
JF - Control Engineering Practice
ER -