Paper Info
Title
Custom-developed vs. model-based configuration tools: experiences from an industrial automation ecosystem
Abstract
High demands regarding the variability of automation software motivate organizations to automate the configuration process. In practice, this often leads to the development of custom configuration tools designed specifically for configuring the automation software they were developed for. This approach works well as long as both, the development of the software and the configurator are under the full control of the organization. However, software platforms are increasingly open, i.e., key customers add capabilities and thereby change the platform's variability. Often, these customers create a new platform themselves, which they offer to their customers. Moving from a closed platform to a software ecosystem means that development and variability management happen at multiple layers involving multiple teams with different backgrounds. This poses new requirements regarding the flexibility of configuration tools. In this paper, we report experiences and issues with a custom-developed configurator currently in use in an industrial automation software ecosystem. We describe how a model-based tool can be applied to address these issues and provide a scenario-based comparison of the custom-developed solution and the model-based configurator.
Year
DOI
Venue
2013
10.1145/2499777.2500713
SPLC Workshops
Keywords
Field
DocType
configuration process,model-based configurator,software platform,automation software,model-based configuration tool,custom configuration tool,software ecosystem,industrial automation ecosystem,configuration tool,custom-developed configurator,closed platform,industrial automation software ecosystem,configuration
Configurator,Software configuration management,Systems engineering,Variability management,Automation,Software,Engineering,Closed platform,Software development,Software ecosystem
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
8
0.48
17
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Daniela Lettner11527.25
Michael Petruzelka280.48
Rick Rabiser3136979.63
Florian Angerer41076.78
Herbert Prähofer518917.00
Paul Grünbacher62007118.84