Mika Strömman

Professional designers' adaptations of IEC 61499 to their individual work practices

The IEC 61499 standard enables a number solutions to the same application development problem, and this can result in components that are incompatible even though they are standards based. IEC 61499 underpins a vision for an open object-oriented knowledge economy, so the application of component-based software development principles needs further research. Such principles are not broadly used in the industry, so our goal is to understand how industrial practice needs to be changed. What are the practices that need to be replaced before the object-oriented, component-based paradigm can be accepted? We organized an intensive course on IEC 61499, where professionals and researchers automated a process in teams. Our results show that the background of a designer has a strong impact on the choice of the problem solving approach, and that this can prevent the use of many new and progressive features in IEC 61499

Control software reuse strategies with IEC 61499

The IEC 61499 gives developers considerable freedom and offers several features that support reuse. Although this can help the adoption of the standard into an organizations development process, the range of design decisions can also harm the reusability of software, if components are developed with incompatible design principles. Guidelines are needed, but the unique backgrounds and market positions of industrial players must be respected. The paper analyzes some alternative solutions that were developed by automation designers using IEC 61499; although the solutions differ considerably, it is very difficult to rate their reuse potential absolutely. The factors that must be addressed in a reuse strategy are discussed, concluding with the suggestion that it is not possible to present detailed guidelines that would apply to the entire industry

Process Control with IEC 61499: Designers' Choices at Different Levels of the Application Hierarchy

The IEC 61499 enables different approaches for application development, and this can undermine the emerging open knowledge economy. Developers typically try to use an approach that resembles their previous programming experience, and this can result in the new features of IEC 61499 to be overlooked. Even when designers are able to turn out working software, the various components are often incompatible because they incorporate diverse design principles. In this research, we look at the different levels of the application hierarchy, in order to understand the design decisions that need to be made. We have organized a laboratory experiment with professional designers and researchers, and we use qualitative research methods to understand the design choices that participants with different backgrounds make.

Incorporating industrial experience to IEC 61499 based development methodologies and toolsets

The successful use of IEC 61499 in the industry requires software development processes that utilize the standards support for best practices of software engineering, such as CORFU. The adoption of such a process would involve upgrading existing practices, tacit knowledge and legacy software, which constitute much of the core competence and essential assets of a company. This paper reports on a two part research that aims to manage the risk and cost of such a venture. The first part has been performed in collaboration with professionals in order to identify industrially familiar work practices for IEC 61499 based development. The second part investigates the possibility of adapting the CORFU development process into the direction of the work practices discovered in the first part.

Design Process Model for Optimizing Design of Continuous Production Processes.

The non-growing market situation in pulp and paper industry has tightened the competition. Cutting the design costs by integrating design activities is not going to be enough but the design itself has to be improved. The design of continuous production processes can be enhanced by utilizing optimization techniques during the design process. The benefit of the optimization techniques in process design depends on adequate usage of them during the design process. However, this paradigm shift will require changes in the existing design processes. In this study, the required changes are identified and a new design process model describing the optimizing design utilization is developed. The model is then assessed through a case study and an interview study to ensure that the design process can be realized in the conceptual design phase of a real delivery project.

Challenges in Applying Optimization in the Design of Continuous Processes - Case: Collaborative Optimizing Design of Pulp Fractionation Process

In order to make pulp and paper facility design more effective, simulation and optimization could be used more comprehensively during design. The structure and the operation of the mill should be designed simultaneously, and therefore bi-level multi-objective optimization (BLMOO) is a feasible method. Applying BLMOO in pulp and paper facility design requires changes in business processes of organizations involved. In this research, projects of applying optimizing design in example cases have been followed and a multi-organizational design process is defined. The process is then evaluated by expert interviews.