Authors:
Felix Rinker
1
;
2
;
Laura Waltersdorfer
1
;
2
;
Manuel Schüller
2
and
Dietmar Winkler
1
;
2
Affiliations:
1
Christian Doppler Laboratory for Security and Quality Improvement in the Production System Lifecycle (CDL-SQI), TU Wien, Austria
;
2
Institute of Information Systems Engineering, TU Wien, Austria
Keyword(s):
Domain-specific Modeling, Production Systems Engineering, Model-driven Engineering, Domain-specific Languages, Model Quality, Multi-disciplinary Engineering.
Abstract:
Background. In Production Systems Engineering (PSE), the planning of production systems involves domain experts from various domains, such as mechanical, electrical and software engineering collaborating and modeling their specific views on the system. These models, describing entire plants, can reach a large size (up to several GBs) with complex relationships and dependencies. Due to the size, ambiguous semantics and diverging views, consistency of data and the awareness of changes are challenging to track. Aim. In this paper we explore visualizations mechanisms for a model inspection tool to support consistency checking and the awareness of changes in multi-disciplinary PSE environments, as well has more efficient handing of AutomationML (AML) files. Method. We explore various visualization capabilities that are suitable for hierarchical structures common in PSE and identified requirements for a model-inspection tool for PSE purposes based on workshops with our company partner. A p
roof-of concept software prototype is developed based on the elicited requirements. Results. We evaluate the effectiveness of our Information Visualisation (InfoVis) approach in comparison to a standard modeling tool in PSE, the AutomationML Editor. The evaluation showed promising results for handling large-scale engineering models based on AML for the selected scenarios, but also areas for future improvement, such as more advanced capabilities. Conclusion. Although InfoVis was found useful in the evaluation context, in-depth analysis with domain experts from industry regarding usability and features remain for future work.
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